Quote:
Originally Posted by strombad
Close to downtown would be a 20 minute cycle ideally. 5-15 minute drive, that sort of thing. Nothing apartment style IF we can avoid it (live in one now), and a safe enough area to raise a kid (not that it seems to be much of a problem in most areas of Calgary).
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You may want to give Bridgeland a try to see if it fits. My wife and I were looking for a house for months with similar criteria, but couldn't find anything we liked within our budget in the obvious inner-city places. For some reason we kind of ignored the Bridgeland/Renfrew area (maybe because i was almost always a south Calgary guy?). But in the end we expanded our area (and sadly, our budget), and found a really nice home that we should be moving into in a month if all goes well.
Location wise, it's hard to beat. There's a great park in the neighborhood, lots of restaurants/amenities on 1st ave, the LRT stop is a 5 minute walk, across Memorial you have the Bike Paths and Zoo, and the soon to be opened St Patricks Island. The East Village (with amenities like the new public library, NMC and who knows what else) will be close enough where you can take advantage. Plus it's on a hill, so there's no typical flood issues to worry about...instead you get great shots of the skyline.
Price wise, it's considerably cheaper than what one will find in Altadore, South Calgary, Hillhurst, and other more developed communities (that often can't match the access to ammenities of Bridgeland). It's not as polished or development-saturated as those neighborhoods, but I think because of that, I think there might be a little more room to grown in terms of your investment. There's plenty of new construction/infill action already, and I can see that continuing.
One other neighborhood that we also quite liked that was in the north was Mount Pleasant. Tons of infill action going on there, if that's your thing.