Relocating from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis (St. Paul, Maple Grove: receptions, new home, wedding reception)

[mnhomeguy]

Maple Grove is a great community but, depending on your address it's either in the Osseo School district.

Osseo School District

or the Wayzata school district.

Wayzata School District

Both are excellent but they are HUGE, they each include multiple cities in the west and north west suburbs.
As for housing you can get a lot of house for your money depending on where you move in either one of the school districts but your husband will have a relatively long commute.
If you're looking for something smaller and more intimate, Edina Public schools are great. Plus you'll be closer to downtown.

Edina School District

Real Estate is more expensive in Edina but you can definitely find a nice home for under 500k.
If you want to see homes for sale in either MG or Edina check out this site.


All three school districts are top notch and both Maple Grove and Edina are wonderful cities to raise a family. my dad grew up in Edina and many of my friends live in Maple Grove.. I myself live in Bloomington which is also pretty awesome (I went to Jefferson High School and I turned out all right ). Good luck with the move! hopefully you're waiting until after this cold snap.

[jurce9]

Originally Posted by MnMomma

Agreed. OP...if you could live anywhere in Pittsburgh, where would it be?

I love living in Upper St. Clair. I like the parks and recreation available here. Plus, being 1 mile away from shopping, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. is a huge bonus! You also can have a nice yard for the kids to play in. Other towns I'd like living in might be Mt. Lebanon and/or Shadyside...love that you can walk everywhere! The downside is you don't get much space.

[jurce9]

mnhomeguy...THANK YOU for your points on Maple Grove and Edina. I'm so thankful to everyone on this post who has given us such great information to consider!

As for the cold weather, we have it here in Pittsburgh, too, so it won't be too big of a shock once we're out there! It's going to be -30 with the wind chills tonight into tomorrow. My friends are already saying I'm responsible for bringing on the cold weather here as it's Gods way of preparing me for a move to MN!

[davephan]

You might also check the east metro. Woodbury is a very nice area with many trails, park, and shopping areas.

There are huge differences when you look at the crime data, mainly between the core cities and suburban areas. Some areas have good connections with express buses if you don't want to drive and pay two grand a year to park in downtown Minneapolis. Some parts of Eagan and south Minneapolis have a lot of jet noise from MSP.

[MnMomma]

Originally Posted by jurce9

I love living in Upper St. Clair. I like the parks and recreation available here. Plus, being 1 mile away from shopping, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. is a huge bonus! You also can have a nice yard for the kids to play in. Other towns I'd like living in might be Mt. Lebanon and/or Shadyside...love that you can walk everywhere! The downside is you don't get much space.

Those are areas of Pittsburgh that I like too...and I don't think I'd ever want to live in Maple Grove or Plymouth..the Cranberry-like areas just don't resonate with me (I'm from Fox Chapel).

I think it sounds like you'd be happier living closer in to the city. Your husband would have a shorter commute and there are some lovely neighborhoods to choose from. I'd recommend doing a "radius search" on one of the local real estate web sites (I like Edina Realty's search tools, but Coldwell Banker is good too) based on your husband's work address and see what houses you like. It will help to give you an overview of what is available within a reasonable driving distance from work.

I recommend Southwest Minneapolis (especially Fulton, Lynnhurst, Tangletown or Linden Hills neighborhoods) but I'm biased since I live there. The Tyrol Hills neighborhood of Golden Valley has more hills and feels a little Pittsburgh-ish to me...and has an easy commute to downtown. A little further out...there are some great neighborhoods in St. Louis Park, Edina, Hopkins and the east side of Minnetonka that would be good schools and commutes too.

A note on lot sizes...they tend to be pretty consistent by neighborhood, but a unique setting can give you a much larger feel (i.e. if it backs up to a park or natural area). We have a small lot, but when I look out my back windows I can't see any other houses. I say this so that you don't write-off an entire area based on one criteria. You have lots of areas to choose from!

[Family of five]

Originally Posted by jurce9

I love living in Upper St. Clair. I like the parks and recreation available here. Plus, being 1 mile away from shopping, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. is a huge bonus! You also can have a nice yard for the kids to play in. Other towns I'd like living in might be Mt. Lebanon and/or Shadyside...love that you can walk everywhere! The downside is you don't get much space.

Walking is huge for me, too - I loved being able to walk everywhere in Mt. Lebanon. We walked to elementary, jr. high, and high school and wanted the same for our kids - school buses are strange to us . Our current neighborhood is entirely walkable and feels exactly like the neighborhood I grew up in in Mt. Lebanon. Our house is very similar to the one I grew up in, too. Our kids walk to K-8 and then our kids will walk to high school which is an easy walk, 1.5 miles away. Our neighborhood is entirely mixed-used/residential with sidewalks and is considered urban here (our brother-in-law from Pgh could not believe that we actually live within city limits because, like I said, it feels exactly like the part of Mt. Lebanon he and I both grew up in). It doesn't feel "urban" to us though - it feels like Mt. Lebanon . The sprawl of Twin Cities western suburbia is not for me. Southwest Mpls feels similar to where I live now - we lived in Linden Hills for over a year and you'd never guess that was in the "city" either. Lovely area.

We don't have much yard, for sure, and occasionally I pine for a large expanse of suburban green or a house that backs up to green space. But, the pros of living where we do far, far outweigh any benefits we'd gain from having a bigger yard. One bonus of our block is that the entire stretch of front yards is open play space for the kids (we have lots of kids on our block), so they do end up with quite a bit of running room. We live a few houses from the church/school and they can ride their bikes and scooters in the parking lot. We also have a city park a couple of blocks away with fields that become a free outdoor rink in the winter. My kids walk to the corner store. We have two wonderful restaurants a block away - a neighborhood hamburger joint and a wonderful Italian restaurant. It is just the kind of neighborhood we wanted. I tend to go on too much about it - I just feel so lucky to have landed here .

You really do have many wonderful areas to choose from. I'd love to hear how your search is going and what you end up choosing!

[jurce9]

Update: Some areas that were recommended to us recently are Lakeville, Prior Lake and Savage. Does anyone have input on these locations? I'd love to hear opinions!

[MnMomma]

I'm not a fan of any of those three, although there are nice areas in each. For me, they are too far out, to boring and cookie-cutter.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by jurce9

Update: Some areas that were recommended to us recently are Lakeville, Prior Lake and Savage. Does anyone have input on these locations? I'd love to hear opinions!

I'm not a fan of Savage, the schools in the Savage/Burnsville district are really going down hill. Part of Savage is in Prior Lake district, which is fine. Prior Lake is a cute town, very scenic, far from cookie cutter, with the lakes, etc. there.

Lakeville is very rural, they've had some pretty major budget issues in the schools there so they've cut a lot of programs or it's pretty expensive to participate. There is a good bus system from Lakeville and if you live out that way I'd suggest using that. If not, get a HOV pass if you are closer to 35 and the commute to Minneapolis is actually quite easy. I wouldn't want that commute otherwise though. If you are closer to the Cedar Ave side, it's not a bad commute.

A few neighborhoods in Lakeville can be cookie cutter but there are many, many areas in Lakeville that are heavily wooded, on lakes, hilly and are very pretty. I'm guessing people that suggest otherwise have never really driven in Lakeville. Downtown Lakeville is pretty cute, some nice stores, family restaurants, etc. there. Not huge but it's there.

[jurce9]

Thanks for the input! I had never heard of these communities and really appreciate the honest feedback. I think my husband is going to drive around this weekend and get a feel for them and look at some potential houses. We are still considering the Maple Grove house, but want to do some comparison shopping first.

I looked for real estate in some of the areas you all had suggested...Tyrol Hills, Fulton, Lynnhurst, etc., but unfortunately there is nothing in our price range that I could find.

Thanks again!