Living in Rivermark (San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara: sales, apartment complexes, renting)

[klavierstuck]

I'm moving to San Jose shortly. I'm looking at Sunnyvale and Rivermark as two areas of interest. How do these areas compare?

I really like the look of Rivermark area apartments. Most seem like newer constructions so I think problems like noise from neighbouring apartments will be less common. Amenities seem really good too especially around North Park. Rents in comparable apartments in Sunnyvale and Rivermark/Northpark are nearly similar - atleast based on what I see on Craigslist.

My concern regarding Rivermark/Northpark is that there are fewer pre schools in that area. My kid turns 4 in July so I need to prioritize schooling over anything else when selecting a place to live.

Is schooling really a problem in Rivermark/Northpark or am I overestimating the difficulty in finding a good school in this area?

[bobby_guz_man]

There is a new school being planned right now in that area. The land has already been acquired (the park portion acquired by San Jose, and the school portion was acquired by Santa Clara Unified School District). I don't know when Santa Clara Unified will start the build out, but hopefully it will be ready in a few years. It's slated to be a K-12 school, most likely split into two campuses with K-8 in one and 9-12 in the other. You can read more info here:

https://sites.google.com/site/rivero...rojects/agnews

[silverkris]

Originally Posted by bobby_guz_man

There is a new school being planned right now in that area. The land has already been acquired (the park portion acquired by San Jose, and the school portion was acquired by Santa Clara Unified School District). I don't know when Santa Clara Unified will start the build out, but hopefully it will be ready in a few years. It's slated to be a K-12 school, most likely split into two campuses with K-8 in one and 9-12 in the other. You can read more info here:

https://sites.google.com/site/rivero...rojects/agnews

There already is a school in the Rivermark development, called Don Callejon, which is a K-8 school, it's only about 10 years old, Santa Clara Unified. Pretty decent school.

I think your link is about SCUSD building up another school site in the Agnews East site (which was a facility for treating people with disabilities), which is a few miles to the east of Rivermark.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Rivermark is really nice and very walkable. Both Rivermark and Sunnyvale will have a lot of Indian families renting there. This is great if you are Indian and looking for an Indian community.

I am not Indian, and though I admire the culture, I find their culture noisy. There are usually several adults who stay home all day, and lots of kids.

Also, you will be dealing with the stadium traffic in that area.

FWIW.

I lived in Santa Clara for 10 years, just moved from there in November. I lived by Santa Clara University. Santa Clara is a very nice, very safe city. Pretty boring suburb, but very safe. The area around the university is probably the most walkable. There is a Safeway grocery store, post office, a small library (the large main one is farther away), there is a Saturday market and plenty of restaurants, and lots of parks, all within walking distance in that neighborhood.

The neighborhood right next to the university, on the Safeway side, is frat row and can be very noisy. Otherwise, I'd expect all other neighborhoods to be pretty quiet.

[bobby_guz_man]

Originally Posted by silverkris

There already is a school in the Rivermark development, called Don Callejon, which is a K-8 school, it's only about 10 years old, Santa Clara Unified. Pretty decent school.

I think your link is about SCUSD building up another school site in the Agnews East site (which was a facility for treating people with disabilities), which is a few miles to the east of Rivermark.

Yup, the Agnews one is the one in my post. Rivermark is fine with Callejon, but the Agnews one will be sorely needed over by Tasman/N1 area.

[klavierstuck]

Thanks all for taking the time to reply to me. Much appreciated.

[bentobox34]

I work right near that area. There are really two areas you are describing, Rivermark in the city of Santa Clara (on the west side of the Guadalupe River), and North San Jose (North Park plus several other apartment complexes and office developments) on the east side of the river. Between those, if I had to choose a place to raise kids I would definitely pick Rivermark. That area was built to be a "complete community" with all kinds of neighborhood amenities within walking distance - grocery store, restaurants, bank, library, parks, elementary school, and the Ulistac Nature Area and Guadalupe trail. The only problem with the area is that if you need anything that wasn't built within this bubble you'll need to drive quite a ways. North Park and North San Jose, generally, are much more lacking in amenities, and generally consist of very very large blocks built out as a single use (apartments on this mega-block, office on that mega-block across the 6-lane expressway). There's very little retail (just a scattering of restaurants for the office lunch crowd), and yes a school is planned but who knows when it will get built. They did actually put in a park at Crescent Village which is quite nice. Nonetheless in Rivermark I could imagine walking with my kids to the park, library, school, friends' houses, etc. and that kind of lifestyle is a loooong way off in North San Jose.

[bobby_guz_man]

Well, Northpark is part of the bigger picture North San Jose residential, so you have to take the whole area together. A new big park is already in construction in the back of Riverview Apartments, across the street from North Park, and that park will butt up against the Guadalupe River Trail (which belongs to San Jose). The huge 5-acre park at Domain Apartment at the northern end of North 1st Street is also complete, and it's very very nice and will serve that end of the zone nicely.

So there will be enough parks to go around for North San Jose. I do agree about the library, school, and not enough retail/food places yet. Rivermark is a much smaller area than the North San Jose area, so Rivermark Plaza is more than enough for the residents at Rivermark. Rivermark Plaza is about the same size as @First complex in North San Jose, but the residential component of North San Jose is at least 3 times as large as Rivermark's, so it feels lacking.

The Brandon Park and Riverview complexes being constructed also has their own "market" sections. Hopefully it's better and bigger than what North Park has.

I'm really peeved that with all those residentials stuffed into that area of North San Jose, that they thought @First would have been adequate to serve that area. San Jose needs to push for retail/restaurants to move quickly into that area before risk losing all the residents' sales tax money to Santa Clara's incoming Santana-Row-wannabe supermall coming right next door to Levi's.

[neutrino78x]

Can't believe you guys are ignoring one of the major benefits of northpark: it is right next to the light rail. Hence you would rarely have to drive anywhere. Most of what is not in the immediate area would be found in downtown San Jose, which is very close on light rail. The 49ers stadium is also a short light rail ride from there.

[bigdumbgod]

Originally Posted by neutrino78x

Can't believe you guys are ignoring one of the major benefits of northpark: it is right next to the light rail. Hence you would rarely have to drive anywhere. Most of what is not in the immediate area would be found in downtown San Jose, which is very close on light rail. The 49ers stadium is also a short light rail ride from there.

Yes, and particularly for those living up there, these are your friend: