Work and live in Roswell - which area (Atlanta, Sandy Springs: real estate, apartments)

[RedmondWA]

Hello all,

Great active forum. My family and I will be moving from Redmond, WA in about a month. My wife will be working in Roswell (office on Holcomb Bridge road, between Old Alabama and 400). I am a stay-at-home dad.

We are looking for CC neighborhoods with golf. Brookfield West CC, CC of Roswell, and Horseshoe Bend seem to have homes that we like.

My primary questions relate to schools and traffic for those areas (best schools, best location for work drive and milk runs based on traffic). Also, are any of you familiar with these clubs? Quality, family friendly, general lifestyle?

To help you form you opinions, my wife and I are 40/41 and our children are 3/6. We enjoy an active lifestyle and like participating in organized family oriented events.

Sorry for the wordiness and thank you for any assistance.
Jl

[movinginatl]

I believe the high school that serves that area is Roswell H.S. I don't know much other info on the school system.

I can tell you that Holcomb Bridge has heavy traffic in the morning rush hour going towards Norcross. I think it is a great area to raise a family, along with the areas of East Cobb, Alpharetta & Johns Creek. Johns Creek has some great country club communities that you might like better.

[RedmondWA]

Thank you for the reply.

Would the Johns Creek commute be better than coming from the Brookfield CC or Ansley Golf Club Settindown Creek?

Brookfield has a good El school, based on stats, (Mountain Park), and feeds Roswell High as you suggested. I'll check on Johns Creek schools

I have read some opinions of Johns Creek within this forum, and most/all are positive, but we want to try to get the best commute possible. Based only on the general location of the new job (provided in initial post), which area would likely have the best drive to/from work.

Ansley and Brookfield CC's are NW, Horseshoe Bend is SE, and CC of Roswell/Willows Lake are just NE of work. I guess Old Alabama to Holcomb Bridge would be the commute route from Johns Creek right? How's that traffic?

Thanks so much for opinions and suggestions....

[rackensack]

The work location is about the worst possible for traffic in the immediate area (Kimberly-Clark, I assume). I live just off Holcomb Bridge Rd. about 2.5 miles east of 400 (between Horseshoe Bend and Martin's Landing) and it can take me 25 minutes to get from my house to the ramp onto 400 South at the peak of rush hour. Brookfield is only 7 miles away, but it could be a 40 minute drive at the worst times. CC of Roswell would probably be my pick of those options -- traffic on Old Alabama isn't quite as ugly as Holcomb Bridge (it does still back up during rush hour though), and it's less than 3 miles to the work location. You're quite close to Newtown Park, have non-highway/non-artery routes to North Point Mall, Centennial High, Johns Creek, and plenty of other places.

CC of Roswell and Horseshoe Bend would both be in the Centennial High School district -- CC of R would be in the Northwood and Haynes Bridge elem and middle school districts, Horseshoe Ben would be River Eves Elem and Holcomb Bridge Middle.

FWIW, the owner of the Horseshoe Bend CC filed for Chapter 11 protection earlier this year, and there's a lot of angst among homeowners there about the degree to which the club has been allowed to deteriorate, and the impact the bankruptcy and decline of the club is having on property values.

[RedmondWA]

Great info rakensack! Thank you for being so specific. Seems like 5 mile radius will be a good 30 minute commute. I guess it could be worse, but it's still not a pretty thought.

We lived in Atl a few years ago. Left in '98. Lived in Buckhead. My wife could walk to her office mine was near the airport. My commute was mostly under 30 minutes then. I've heard that traffic is much worse now.

I'll watch the situation in Horsehoe Bend. I did read about the chapter 11. It might be a good time to get in to that neighborhood, assuming that good management is on the way.

Mainly, we want an active family friendly CC, good elementary school, and of course the best commute possible. The commute has to take a backseat to the school situation obviously.

Thanks again.

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by RedmondWA

I'll watch the situation in Horsehoe Bend. I did read about the chapter 11. It might be a good time to get in to that neighborhood, assuming that good management is on the way.

Well, that's the thing. A lot of people were hoping that the foreclosure would go through and the club would be sold to someone other than the current owner. The Chapter 11 filing forestalled that, at least for the time being, and having been an employee of a company in bankruptcy I can tell you it's awfully tough to get approval for improvements as opposed to paying back creditors, so the members will probably have to wait until the owner manages its way out of Chapter 11 or sells the club to new ownership before anything about the facilities, etc., changes. Whatever portion of the price you pay for a home in HB that is attributable to the presence of the club has to be considered at risk until the club is on a solid footing again, and with other options nearby you have to assume buyers for whom that's important are going to gravitate to those instead.

Originally Posted by RedmondWA

Mainly, we want an active family friendly CC, good elementary school, and of course the best commute possible. The commute has to take a backseat to the school situation obviously.

All of the elementary schools in the areas you're looking at are good, and things can change a lot in a few years. River Eves (the school for Horseshoe Bend, and for my neighborhood) just got a new principal, so it's nearly a cinch that the school will be different in at least some ways in a year or so from what it is now. Whether it'll be better or worse remains to be seen. Mountain Park has probably the best reputation, followed by Northwood and then River Eves, but all are excellent schools by almost any standard, and unless you're completely wrapped up in having to be at the "best" school I'm not sure the other location factors, etc. would make me choose Brookfield.

Factors to consider that won't be obvious from the information available online: all of these schools, particularly Northwoods and Mountain Park, have a reputation for being somewhat intolerant of kids who don't fit the mold of what they expect them to be -- I know this to be true of River Eves to a certain extent also, from personal experience. If either of your kids is going to need individual attention in any way, or has a particular learning style that differs from the approaches used by the school, you're likely to have challenges, and your experience will likely vary from year to year based on the teachers. That's true anywhere, of course, but the emphasis on test scores and quantitative measures of performance has made schools quite impatient with kids who require a different approach or who might threaten the high standards the schools are trying to set. This is particularly the case in schools like these where the parents are screaming for heads to roll anytime there's a single-percentage-point drop in CRCT scores, etc. -- they're paying a premium in their mortgage every month for the "best" schools and they're by God going to get them.

Also, the PTSAs in these schools can be cliquish to the extreme, made up almost exclusively of stay-at-home moms with energy to burn and a strong sense of their power. Our local PTSA sometimes seems like an arm of the Horseshoe Bend homeowners' association, since HB makes up such a large part of the school's population. I'd be really curious to see how they'd react to a highly involved stay-at-home dad. Anyway, my point isn't so much to be critical of them -- they put that energy to work trying to make things better, even if there's sometimes debate about what "better" looks like -- as it is to point out that if you're not naturally someone who jumps into things regardless of what other people think, breaking into the inner circle can be a bit daunting -- sort of like you're crashing someone else's party. Again, that's partly just because they all know each other and have for years, but I know it's put some people off, as has the custom of holding meetings during the day, making it impossible for working parents to attend without taking time off from work.

[RedmondWA]

Thank you for taking the time to elaborate on these areas. There seems to be no shortage of possible considerations related to choosing the "right" area to settle down.

Here's something completely out of left field.... What do you, or anyone else who might be reading this, think about living south(ish) of Roswell? Possibly Sandy Springs or Dunwoody? Make any since at all considering traffic flow and schools?

My thanks to rackensack, and to anyone else who would like to jump in...

[10scoachrick]

"Here's something completely out of left field.... What do you, or anyone else who might be reading this, think about living south(ish) of Roswell? Possibly Sandy Springs or Dunwoody? Make any since at all considering traffic flow and schools? "


Well, I live in Sandy Springs and was a tennis pro at HB(usually HSB, even though Horseshoe is one word) in the early 90s. Rob was having development/credit challenges even then regarding the Country Club. Pro Serv put a fair amount of money into the tennis center when the AT&T tennis tournament was there. Some say Rob got greedy and the tournament went to Atlanta Athletic Club. Anyway.....Roswell annexed the area and with the real estate boom, the 'Bend' really exploded with new construction. Mind you, some of the homes are from the 70s and were quite nice for the period but the new construction really changed the complexion of the place. The overall home value may not be so tightly connected to the club as it was when there were fewer than a thousand homes but, certainly, any decline in the perceived value of the club could affect the area. I spotted a home on Wayt Rd for $350k in the paper. Our little 50s ranch in Sandy Springs would fetch that now. That price surprised me on a house in the 'bend'.

Having rambled so much, I would leave you with one thought regarding the commute...the 400/Holcomb Bridge interchange has been under construction since I moved here in 1980(OK, not the ENTIRE time) and a giant live/work/play development is planned for the northwest corner...not to mention constant development along Holcomb Bridge to the east. You could possibly access Kimberly Clark from Sandy Springs by taking Riverside from Hwy 9 and then picking up Old Alabama at its southern tip. Can't speak about schools in the area but my guess is the home pickin's are slim unless you look in the Huntcliff area. Honestly wouldn't expect the schools at the top end of Sandy Springs to be the best given the high density apartments in the area. Minus the school info, I would think Willow Springs/CC of Roswell would be your best shot. Good luck with that short drive down Old Alabama!

OK, another thought. A lot of what folks THOUGHT was Dunwoody is actually Sandy Springs(Fulton County, not Dekalb County) and you might need a helicopter to get to K-C from Dunwoody proper, given the traffic. I wouldn't try the Johns Creek commute on a Saturday, never mind a workday.

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by RedmondWA

Here's something completely out of left field.... What do you, or anyone else who might be reading this, think about living south(ish) of Roswell? Possibly Sandy Springs or Dunwoody? Make any since at all considering traffic flow and schools?

We'd have preferred to buy in Dunwoody ourselves, but we had to move quickly once our old house sold (less than a month from accepting the offer to being moved out), which meant finding something in an area we could live with in our price range that was vacant at the time. Of course, since I work from home when I'm not at a client site, the commute thing wasn't really an issue for us. Both were also predominantly out of our range, with only very specific neighborhoods where we could actually afford something big enough to meet our needs. Sounds like that's not likely to be an issue for you. School systems in either Sandy Springs or Dunwoody aren't as highly regarded as some in North Fulton, so of course your kids will inevitably turn into drooling, cretinous demon-minions with self-esteem issues if you send them there .

I don't think the commute up to Exit 7 from Dunwoody or Sandy Springs would be as horrible as others have made it sound. The reverse commute times (you'd be going against the primary commute direction in each case) keep going up even more quickly than the standard commute times, and there aren't that many alternative routes -- there are only three bridges you can effectively use: Holcomb Bridge, GA 400, and Roswell Rd., unless you end up in the western part of Sandy Springs in which case you could add Johnson Ferry. A lot of what costs me time on in getting around is just making it the last mile on Holcomb Bridge to 400, but from the work location you've described, you're there already, and likewise you'd only have to go a few hundred feet once you got off 400 in the mornings.

I guess the upshot is that if I were in your position, I wouldn't summarily reject Dunwoody or Sandy Springs. My sense is that you'd probably get more of what you're looking for at a workable price in the Roswell/Alpharetta area, but

[rackensack]

Originally Posted by 10scoachrick

OK, another thought. A lot of what folks THOUGHT was Dunwoody is actually Sandy Springs(Fulton County, not Dekalb County) and you might need a helicopter to get to K-C from Dunwoody proper, given the traffic. I wouldn't try the Johns Creek commute on a Saturday, never mind a workday.

Actually, while there's certainly traffic, I've had occasion to drive from parts of Duluth/Suwanee/John's Creek back over to the Holcomb Bridge/400 area a few times during rush hour, and it's not impossible. Not fun, but not impossible. Much depends on where you're starting and where you're heading.