Moving to Roanoke in Winter 2012 (Cave Spring, Franklin: for sale, daycare, houses)

[Ironhead#3]

I lived in the Roanoke area 20yrs ago and am going to be moving back by Dec 2012. I'd be working downtown, & my wife will probably work in Cave Spring area, at least for a while.

-We have an infant, so we need daycare opinions & recommendations. We saw comments about Country Bear & Honey Tree, are there others?

-We are looking at buying, or possibly building a home, and staying around/under $500k. We're moving from the Dallas area, which has diverse architecture with stone, brick & three car garages. We've not found much on the market with these preferences. How are the building costs in ROA? Are there any recommended builders in the area?

-We'd like to stay in the suburbs and are leaning towards the SW Roanoke County area, near Hidden Valley or Cave Spring. Are there any recommended neighborhoods with community pools, street lights and sidewalks?

-How is the commute from Cave Spring to Downtown during rush hours?

-We are a multi-racial family and hoping that ROA has become a little more diverse than it was 20yrs ago. What is the feeling as far as the racial issues in the ROA area?

[titaniummd]

Commute time is pretty good. It takes 12-18".

Houses are much more expensive here unless you build in Franklin or Botetourt. Brick houses with car garage run $750k and up for resale.

[Scott94]

First off, welcome back to Roanoke and good luck with the move. I'll do the best I can to answer your questions.

For daycare, like you mentioned in your post, Country Bear and Honey Tree are probably the two most popular. There are also several churches throughout the valley that have daycare as well.

I can't really help you much with building costs or preferred builders in the area.

You mention that you would like to stay in the SW county area. This area would seem to fit best with the price of home you are considering. You'll find similar priced homes off roads such as 221 or Buck Mountain Road in the county, or in developments such as Canterbury, Devoncroft and Roycroft. For specific neighborhoods, if you don't really have anything else to go on, I would go to Google Maps and just look around and try to consider what area would suit best. Then, I would recommend something like Zillow to find out the houses that are for sale. If you are planning to build a house, I'm sure there are some open lots in the area. The only new neighborhood that I know of in SW county is the Ridge at Fairway Forest, so you might want to check that out if you are considering to build. Finally, sidewalks are pretty much nonexistent in the county, so if you really want those, you should start looking at living in downtown or in South Roanoke.

Commute from Cave Spring to Downtown would be around 15 to 25 minutes, depending on how far away you end up living from a main roadway. Traffic is generally light all around town, so rush hour really isn't that big of a deal here.

If restaurants tell anything, this should be a pretty diverse area. You can food from just about anywhere here nowadays. Of course that doesn't tell the whole story, and I probably wouldn't be the best to answer this question so hopefully someone else can. However, I hear little about racial problems in the valley, so I would hope it has become more diverse since you left.

Hope this helps and once again good luck!

[SamChaplin2]

The architecture in southwestern Roanoke city is definitely what you're looking for. The houses and lots are absolutely gorgeous over there. The commute can be tough, especially during rush hour. 5-81 and 81 are not fun at all.