Advice on moving to Indianapolis (1 Viewer)

[Darren_N]

Hello all,

The family and I will be moving to Indy soon and was just wondering if the HTFers who currently live there had any advice. Our oldest is 4 and will be starting kindergarten next year so a good school district is moving up our list of concerns. We've heard and read good things about the schools up in Carmel and Fishers but the commute would be a problem. I will be working at the Lilly Technology Center which is southeast of downtown and I've been told that the commute would be around an hour one way on a good day to either Carmel or Fishers. I'd like to keep it around 30 minutes.

Could anyone recommend some communities that are closer to Lilly that offer quality school systems?

Thanks.

Regards,
Darren

 

[DaveF]

Carmel & Fishers are in the 7th-wealthiest county in the US, or so I'm told. There are some fantastic places in that area. But it can be expensive, too.

The south side, which might also be a commute, near Greenwood has some large and good public schools and a nice mix of housing options.

Indy is a very nice city, and is only 3-4 hrs from Chicago, if that is your thing.

 

[Darren_N]

Dave,

Thanks for the response. We're really looking forward to living in Indy. It's so centrally located in relation to other cities - Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati. It's also only about 8 hours from Kansas City, which is where we live now. That will be good for going back to visit family over the holidays.

Do you know anything about Franklin Township? We have some friends in Indianapolis that have suggested it.

Thanks again.

Darren

 

[genomovie]

Darren N
Welcome to Indiana. You might want to check east of Indianapolis in Hancock county. They have excellent school systems, and everywhere from the east is pretty much excessible on the interstate systems. You may not know it, but they have had a mess with the property taxes on home owners this year all over the state, but especially in Marion county. (Indianapolis) Some of them doubled and tripled what they were last year. So be careful where you settle. I hope you and your family enjoy your stay here.

 

[ScottR]

I live in Warren Township...the schools are EXCELLENT. Warren Central High School is as large as a college campus and has almost any type of curriculum your student could want, in order to prepare for college. This is Jane Pauley's alma mater. They have a Career Center, a state of the art performing arts center (IMO the best theater in the state), and a great football field (having won championships 4 years in a row.) Warren is on the far east side. Hope this helps.

 

[Darren_N]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. We'll be going up in late September/early October to look around. We've been set up with a company that will drive us around and show us all the communities we're interested in. From the research we've done and the suggestions here, I think we'll be concentrating on Greenwood, Brownsburg, Warren Township, and Franklin Township.

Gene, yeah, I've heard a little bit about the property tax debacle. How bad was it in the places that I mentioned above?

Okay, so now that the minor issues of schools and where to raise a family have been narrowed down, lets get to the really important stuff. Where are the good A/V shops and where are the best movie theatres?

Thanks again.

Darren

 

[DaveF]

North side of town, Castleton and Westfield has good shopping, some higher end shops and a mall. Southside (Greenwood) is the other major shopping area with the area mall, car dealerships, etc. High-end, custom A/V places are struggling, like in the rest of the country. One chain that does that, Ovation, used to have a shop in Greenwood.

My understanding, from family, is that property taxes are generally modest, < 1% of assessed value. There were some areas with large, expensive houses that got re-evaluated at current market rates and saw dramatically increased taxes. I hadn't heard about that impacting typical suburbia.

If Franklin Township is south of Greenwood (e.g. Franklin, IN) it's a bit farther out. Nice area with a nice little college there.

About 30 min south of Greenwood is a large outlet shopping mall. I've done my annual clothes shopping there most every Christmas the past 15 years And 30 min past that is another major outlet mall!

The major issue in IN, and Indianapolis in particular, is that it's struggling, like the rest of the Midwest, with the loss of major manufacturing jobs. I'll have to ask about life at Lilly. My wife has friends who work there.

 

[Nathan_F]

Welcome to the area! It wouldn't be too bad getting to Lilly from Fishers, depending on when you traveled. I have commuted from Carmel and Fishers to downtown and it can run as much as 45 minutes, but compared to a city such as Chicago, it's not bad at all.

I am originally from a small town about 20 miles SE of Indy, and moved to the north side due to the schools there. Fishers and Carmel schools, in my opinion, are the best in the area.

As mentioned above, an important thing to note are property tax issues that have crept up recently. I just moved from Lawrence township on the east side where my taxes ran just a bit over 1% of assessed value, but my sister lives in Franklin Township and her taxes are over 2.5% of assessed value due to the lower industrial/commercial base in that area. I am now in Fishers where I understand taxes will be at around the 1% mark again.