Relocating to Denver - commute times

[steveco.]

I have family that lives up in the Evergreen area and yes there are some VERY pricey homes up in the area but there are also some reasonable ones too, be it that some of them are a bit of a drive to get too, and the commute depends on where you are going. To get downtown is going to take you roughly 45 minutes depending how far you are from the highway. Community up there is fairly close knit and there are many families up there as well. Also many activities and the beauty of the mountains is right at you're door step.
As mentioned Lakewood is a very suburban area for the most part. Newly built Belmar is what they call the new downtown of Lakewood. It has lots of chain stores with condos and apartments that are stacked on top of them. Its a neat area but small but easy to get anywhere you need to go from there. Lots of nice neighboorhoods but there are some bad ones also. Some areas such as sheridan and federal (not sure if these are in denver or lakewood) are a little sketchy and parts of alameda are as well. The farther west in lakewood you go the more hilly it will be and lots tend to get a bit larger. If you like this particular type I would also consider the golden area too. hope this helps

[teebirds]

My wife and I looking into moving to the Devner area and would love some advice on a few suburbs to consider.

We'd like to be roughly 30 minutes from Denver Airport. We'd love to be near some parks and find a 3 bedroom house with a good-sized lot in a neighborhood with a real community feel. We'd like to live near a to cute downtown and we're looking to spend between $600,000-$750,000. We're early thirties with a young kid. Any help you can provide would be MUCH appreciated!

[Katarina Witt]

30 min from the airport should be easy to eyeball on a map. Figure about 20 miles. I don't really know of any places that meet your conditions in that area, but maybe someone else does.

[steveco.]

The only place that comes to mind to me is the washington park area. Its an historic area of denver that is centered around a really nice park and you always see groups of parents with kids walking or playing in the park and has a real community feel like you were mentioning. Its not to far from the old pearl st. business district which is sort of like a mini downtown area lots of little shops and cafes and a great yet expensive sushi place

[tfox]

Originally Posted by teebirds

My wife and I looking into moving to the Devner area and would love some advice on a few suburbs to consider.

We'd like to be roughly 30 minutes from Denver Airport. We'd love to be near some parks and find a 3 bedroom house with a good-sized lot in a neighborhood with a real community feel. We'd like to live near a to cute downtown and we're looking to spend between $600,000-$750,000. We're early thirties with a young kid. Any help you can provide would be MUCH appreciated!

Unfortunately, Our airport is quite a ways out of town. It will take roughly about 15-20 minutes simply to get from the terminal building to I-70 along the airport access road (Pena Boulevard -- which luckily has little traffic). From there, you have to deal with traffic on I-70, so that extra 10 minutes won't get you too far. Also, some of the closer city neighborhoods to the airport, like Green Valley Ranch, Gateway, Montbello, Northeast Park Hill (all in Denver), the northern part of Aurora, and Commerce City, are all not often recommended on this board for varying reasons; some more so than others, of course.

The Stapleton neighborhood of Denver might be what you're looking for -- it's actually a redevelopment site atop Denver's old airport. It would be safely within 30 minutes to the airport, with very frequent express buses which head to the airport from the Stapleton Park and Ride (every 15 minutes or so). Finding a large lot would not be possible in Stapleton (or anywhere in the city, for the most part -- for that, you'd need to look out to rural properties to the north of the airport). However, your budget would comfortably allow a wide range of houses there. Stapleton is about 5 miles east of downtown, so it's an easy drive or bus ride there when you're so inclined -- as a "new urbanist" neighborhood it has its own shopping options. One of Denver's best charter schools (the Denver School for Science and Technology) is also located in Stapleton, as a bonus.

[Bradburn1]

Stapleton has a real community feel (although it's HUGE), I have friends who live there and they love it. There will be much to choose from in your price range there, but the lots in Stapleton are smaller than other places (a general trait of new urbanist communities), not sure how large of a lot you are looking for. Stapleton's downtown is really nice, but you can't walk there from most of the houses (you can however, ride a bike easily). Stapleton also has the best parks I've ever seen in any neighborhood.

You might also have a look at my neighborhood, Bradburn Village in Westminster. We have a significant community feel here with tons and tons of kids (most between 1-8 years). There are some homes being built in the third phase here by McStain that have larger lots, but I still wouldn't consider the lots "large" by suburban standards (some are maybe 10,000 sq feet or so I think). However, in exchange for a smaller lot, you get a strong community feel (I mean, really strong--we have neighborhood events weekly almost and I know ALL my neighbors, not just the ones on my street), a walkable neighborhood, and a cute downtown (although it's not finished yet--should be a few more years right now we have 8 buildings of retail/offices/restaurants with 12 more planned). We have the benefits of walkable, city living (cool architecture, porches, can walk to many stores and places to eat, etc..) but also have excellent public schools. We have 9 parks in the neighborhood itself and can easily walk to a HUGE city park with elaborate playground in 10 minutes, as well as direct access to the Dry Creek Open space which has extensive bike/running/walking trails.

If you want to hear more about Bradburn, I've posted more details on this forum previously so search the term and/or just look at my past posts. Oh we are 40 minutes from DIA here.

You might also look at Lowry in Denver, it has a nice town center I hear. Good luck with your search, we love living in Denver and in our neighborhood in particular.

[dj32]

stapleton may be more of what you are looking for.
Wash Park will be difficult with your parameters on lot size and price range.