Lyric at Carleton place (St. Paul, Rice: apartment, lease, condo)

[JasonStarCommand]

Anyone lived at lyric at carleton place and have general comments about renting here? How is their underground parking?
How is the neighborhood? around North Hampden Ave, St. Paul, MN 55114

[Squeamish]

I currently live two blocks away. The neighborhood is remarkably quiet and low-crime for a central urban neighborhood. I have left interesting stuff sitting in my backseat for years and my car has never been broken into. However, there is a notable lack of good ethnic restaurants and other useful services in the immediate vicinity, compared to other similar neighborhoods. I always end up going 2-4 miles east to get take-out.

I hardly know anything about that building, but it sounds like just another overpriced condo that few people want. Last I heard, it had many vacancies. Some people like that kind of place, but I'll bet you can pay less than half to live in an older but perfectly functional building a few blocks away.

[JasonStarCommand]

Thanks for the tips. I'll be renting a place sight-unseen so your info is helpful. Yeah, I figured that there would probably be better deals that I can possibly find once I get to know the areas better. I like the fact that bus and light transportation options are available on University Ave though that could be a challenge to use during the cold winter months.
Btw what are the ethnic eateries you found east of the area? I too love sampling food from different cultures.
What's the closest grocery store you go to? When i looked up online, 'Cub' was the closest i saw that seemed to be big and open most hours.

[Squeamish]

I think the older brick apartment blocks, built well before the present high-end building boom, are the best deals around here, but I don't know much about the mid- to high-end market. I will soon be downgrading to a friend's basement that is well below the lowest-priced apartment in the entire metro, ha, and my current apartment is pretty run-down. Heard that the Green Line raised average rents near stations about 25% within a year of its opening, so you will most likely save significantly living on a bus line as opposed to a light rail line.

I eat pretty much exclusively Asian and Indian. The Indian restaurants are spread all over the metro, impractical from transit, but there's an incredibly remarkable selection of awesome Asian restaurants on the Green Line. On's Thai Kitchen by the Snelling station is outstanding, probably the best overall. The rest are all in Frogtown. Bangkok Thai Deli is the popular one, I'd recommend it for the taste but the portion sizes are small and a friend got food poisoning from there once. Cheng Heng is incredible Cambodian, low-priced, really nice family, although its taste is a little different from most Thai places I've been to (perhaps more authentic?) and it may not appeal to all. Trieu Chau is another one I've been to many times, and there are some new ones popping up that I haven't tried yet including a huge Thai one at University and Marion. I once read that the Green Line was raising taxes for business frontage on University to something to the tune of $30k/year, which I'd imagine would put them out of business in a heartbeat, but all the good restaurants are still there, so they must've found a workaround for that.

I can't not mention East Side Thai. Another outstanding restaurant in an unexpected location. Pretty sure that neighborhood has the lowest rents in the metro too, although you may have to deal with sketchy characters walking past every so often and bussing from there requires transferring in downtown St. Paul and waiting out eeevery stupid red light there. Or bike up Tedesco and University to the Robert station if you have a bike. If my friend hadn't have had his basement for rent, I would've gone with whatever the realtor over there could've found me for $400. He said it was a stretch, as rents are rising, which confirms that NOTHING is advertised in the metro for $400 anymore, but he seemed to think he could find me something at that price talking to landlords since I told him it was my firm ceiling and I can provide references. Probably would've been a dumpy room on top of one of the businesses on Payne, Arcade, or Rice, but that'd suit me quite well. Education and work experience do not always translate to affluence nor a desire for a lavish lifestyle, heh.

I shop at Target on the way home from work in the suburbs, so I can't really help there, although the one time I went to the Hampden Co-op I discovered it was REALLY expensive, gotta have a reason for wanting that type of food to justify the cost. Cub is the basic mainstream MN grocery store, always found what I wanted there at a reasonable price and it's a short walk from the Snelling station.

St. Paul puts out outstanding crime maps. Check out the dot map of residential burglary before you sign a lease. I think you have to look at the year or month map to see the dots. Not all maps have individual dots, but some of the most telling ones do. Don't go for the blank neighborhoods because they'll be too expensive, but try to avoid the densest clusters of dots.