Location advice (again!) (Tampa, Wesley Chapel: low income, for sale, apartment complex)

[nawwal_jrrt]

My family will be moving to tampa and we are looking for a place. We have children who will be starting elementary schools and that is a top priority. I also work at USF so prefer to be close. In addition we want to be close to very good hospitals for our kids for medical attention at short notice if need be. Clearly family friendly and very safe places are essential as well. I've also noticed that St.Pete has a very good children's hospital (all childrens hospital) that seems attractive should we need medical attention for the kids.

We're flexible regarding the budget and are currently looking in tampa palms, which satisfies a lot of criteria, except maybe proximity to hospitals (but maybe there are good ones closeby?). Are there any other places we should also consider? South tampa seems intriguing. While i've seen a few cities such as new york where a lot of families do live in the city my guess is that south tampa is mainly for singles and i want to avoid any area with a high probability for evacuation during hurricanes. I may also travel a bit and would like to know that the family is in an extremely safe neighborhood when i'm away. The reason we're even considering this is that this may be closer to good hospitals and some parts may also be great for families (i just dont know though...)

I've been looking at some past threads and there does seem to be great advice on this forum which i'm thankful for. While we're tending towards TP, any extra inputs would be much appreciated.

[ChrisJ]

What's your price range? I'm currently building a house in Easton Park, a new community in New Tampa (off of Morris Bridge Road and Cross Creek). I work about 2 miles from USF (near I-75 and Fletcher). My new house is going to be about 8 miles from where I work. Right now I live in West Pasco County and it takes me at least an hour. I can tell you more about the community if you want.

[KtKc]

I live in N. Tampa as well...off of Cross Creek Blvd. in Heritage Isles. There are many houses here for sale and the community is great. Its one reason we chose to live here....gated communtity, pool, park for kids (we have 2 young daughters), plenty of things to do around the area and USF isn't far from here at all. There are hospitals, even a 'Night Owl' pediatric urgent care down the road. The schools here are said to be good....I think there are several right there on Cross Creek. We've only been living here a couple of months....moved here from NC.

[Qacer]

I have a cousin who lived in an apartment complex along Cross Creek Blvd. (between Bruce B. Downs and John Morris Rd). I don't exactly remember the place. But he pointed out one apartment complex in the area that accepted low income families with government assistance.

My cousin has since moved to Wesley Chapel, but when I used to visit him before, he would point the apartment and mentioned how car burglaries in his area went up when the low-income assisted place was built. Do not take my word as gospel on this, but try to look into it. The only reason why I'm mentioning this is because my parents lived in a subdivision that saw this type of problem. A low-income apartment complex was erected nearby and burglaries in the neighborhoods went up.

In the Tampa area, the only hospital that I know that mainly caters to children is St. Joseph's Children's Hospital on Martin Luther King Blvd. However, I normally consider the area around this hospital not ideal for a family setting.

As for your safety search, give this tool a try: http://www.tbo.com/news/crimetracker/ (broken link) . It'll give you an overview on incidents in certain areas. That should give you an idea on where to park your family.