Places to avoid

[inahandbasket]

Originally Posted by sandy2011

Hi,

I am going to be working at Donald Danforth on North Warson, MO 63132. I have been looking for apartments within 5-6 miles from North Warson Street. Could someone tell me some good places and areas to avoid ? I prefer $600-700, fitness center and key access to the apartment building for safety concerns !

Thanks much!
Sandy

You'll be in the suburb of Olivette. You'll be very safe. Do you want to live in the west burbs (not a lot going on for young singles) or do you want to be nearer to some nightlife?

A few suggestions that are east of Olivette are:

1) Clayton Square - right in Clayton, MO. Clayton is very walkable, great restaurants, extremely safe, just west of the city.
Clayton Square Apartments for Rent | Clayton MO Apartments on Apartmentfinder.com

2) Westport Landing - out in the burbs, a big typical apartment complex, nothing distinguishable from any other big complex.

Westport Landing is in Maryland Heights, zip is 63043. There are a lot of apartment complexes in that zip code.

[aragx6]

If you share a bit more about what you want out of a neighborhood we can offer better suggestions. Suburban, rural or urban? How important is walkability? Age of surrounding homes?

[1greatcity]

I don't think it's necessary to steer visitors to STL away from staying in North St Louis. To my knowledge, there are no hotels there anyway. At least not any most people would have heard of. Same goes for East St Louis-- there's really only the casino hotel.
Usually, visitors want to stay either near the airport or close to the attractions. That's why most of the accomodations in the STL area are located downtown, around Forest Park, in Clayton, in the WestPort/Riverport vicinity, and at Lambert. Who comes to St Louis to tour the attractions on the North Side?

[stlouisan]

Basically, if you're coming from Chicago, just keep in mind that East Chicago is no different than East St. Louis...bad news. The Illinois side is just like the Missouri side except it's the opposite. In Chicago, the North side is good and the South side is bad. In St. Louis, it's the opposite. As far as the county goes, you should be relatively safe everywhere there. North County, particularly between Page and 270, is where i'd be slightly concerned. Also east of 170 between 270 and Olive.

[flynavyj]

If i was going to make a blanket statement i'd probably have to agree with Stlouisan. There are plenty of good neighborhoods within his defined area, but if you're trying to avoid bad ones, what was listed will keep you safe from most of them as well. Most of the apartments I see in the county aren't controlled access though, I did live in Creve Coeur at Kings Landing Apartments which was keyed access for parking/building entry, but I don't think they have anything in your price range...might be worth checking though, but i think they wanted about $900 for a 1 BR, and we were paying $1200 for a 2 BR. This was also with a $400/mo discount the apartment complex had thrown in, so normal rent would have been $1600/month! (Gah).

If you're trying to stay within about 5 miles, everything from Maryland Heights in the county, to University City should all work. There are numerous, very cool (architecturally) buildings off Pershing Ave in the U-City area. I had a couple friends who lived down there and loved it, and the rent was probably slightly more affordable than Creve Coeur, but probably not as cheap as Maryland Heights, and should be still be plenty safe. They'll be older buildings, wood floors, radiant heat, arched doorways, and most likely plaster walls...but their age adds to their charm, and their location will put you fairly close to work, and still in a GREAT position to get around the local st. louis attractions and hotspots between the county and the city.