Question(s) for Denver JCers

[Duck_Twacy]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it to the Lav, or wherever.

The wife and I have been considering a relo for a number of months, and, having both fallen in love with Denver (well, Boulder for the wife) that's our main focus.

I have a couple of questions regarding places to work (instruct?), places to live, schools, etc. If it's better not to spend a thread on it, please PM me.

Thanks!

[ian]

Originally Posted by Duck_Twacy

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it to the Lav, or wherever.

The wife and I have been considering a relo for a number of months, and, having both fallen in love with Denver (well, Boulder for the wife) that's our main focus.

I have a couple of questions regarding places to work (instruct?), places to live, schools, etc. If it's better not to spend a thread on it, please PM me.

Thanks!

tons of airports out here to work at. the two biggest that come to mind are centenial and jeffco. Jeffco is where i do my flying at out here. It's also closer to Boulder since it is in Broomfield

[I_Money]

I live in Denver - feel free to ask away! It is great out here - I really really like it!

[Duck_Twacy]

I_Money, I PM'd you my questions, but I suppose I'll post them for general discussion.

Work: I currently work in IT, and while I'm sure I could find a programming job out there to use as a "springboard" of sorts for the relo, the goal is to get OUT of IT. Ideally, I'd like to find a full time instructing oppty, although it may need to be part time flying/part time IT until the wife is gainfully employed. Are BJC and APA the big "two"? Does any instruction even go on at APA?

Schools: We have a 4.5 year old, so schools are important. I stayed in Aurora last week and liked that area, and the schools there seem to be pretty good. What other areas have good schools?

Housing: Again, I stayed in Aurora so we looked at houses in that area on the Interweb last night. It seems you can get a lot of house for your money there. What other areas should we look at?

Thanks for the info!

[jdflight]

Arvada is pretty good for schools, I think. It would be closer to Jeffco. There is instruction at every airport, really. You just have to find it. APA and Jeffco (now Rocky Mountain Metro) have quite a bit. There's a little at the Boulder airport as well as Longmont and just a tad at Lafayette (Tri-Cities, I think). Aurora is okay, but from the things I've heard, I'd only move into the outlying areas of it, which puts you pretty far southeast. I love Boulder, but it is pricey. Boulder schools are really good, if not very diverse. If you live east or south in Boulder, the prices drop considerably. I've seen several condos in the low $200s, but you're definitely not going to live downtown.

[jtrain609]

Jonathan, how far are you from the ski resorts?

[I_Money]

I'm at work - I'll reply later.

[ElyJs]

Here are the big ones

KBJC

Journey's aviation www.journeysaviation.com
McAir aviation www.mcairaviation.com
Western Flight Academy www.westernairflightacademy.com

KFTG
Daedalus www.daedalusaviation.com

KAPA
Flights Inc. www.flights-inc.com/
Aspen Flying Club www.aspenflyingclub.com/

KEIK
Vector Air www.vectorair.net

KBDU
Flatirons Aero www.flatironsaero.com -This is me!
Journeys Aviation - www.journeysaviation.com
Specialty Flight www.specialtyflight.com

KFNL
Colorado Contrails www.coloradocontrails.com

-Jason Ely
www.flatironsaero.com

[bike21]

Originally Posted by jtrain609

Jonathan, how far are you from the ski resorts?

I shall field this one for my fellow Boulderite...we are about 1 1/2 away from most resorts. Eldora is about 45 minutes, but isn't that great unless there has been a nice upslope storm. Summit County with Vail, Breck, A-Basin, etc is an average of 2 hours away. A-basin and Keystone being the closest of about that hour and a half mark. Yes I know, you SLC folks are much closer to the snow

Duck_Twacy come check out the Denver area! It is a great place to be with lots and lots of outdoor activities. As Jonathon said, Boulder is nice but a touch on the spendy side. Starter homes that haven't been updated since the 80's are about 300,000 give or take. That gets you about 1,300 square feet or so. You can get a lot more house for less money in many of Denver's suburbs and cookie cutter developments. For better or for worse, there is no shortage of sprawl surrounding Denver. So priorities come into play.

My wife and I stay in Boulder for many reasons, including the fact that we can ride our bikes to coffee shops, hiking, parks, the bars, grocery, etc with no problem. It is also nice to be able go on training rides (mountain bike or road bike) without having to drive to the trail head. My wife also rides her bike to work nearly every day, so we save on gas and more auto expenses.

The Boulder city council started buying up open space back in the 60's so now we have tons of parks and trails, but you cannot build a new home here within city limits. Hence KB Homes and other developers are not doing any business here. Basically if you want to build a new home, you need to tear down and rebuild. It makes for expensive real estate, but a great place to live and work

Although Boulder is a funky place, it is becoming less of a haven for hippies and more so for ex-olympic athletes and professional outdoor folks. We have the ever-present Trustafarians, whom are trust fund babies yet somehow think they are hippies. Always a fun time! And of course the University of Colorado is here so the college crowd keeps it interesting as well. Unfortunately some of the Boulder crowd can be a bit elitist, but when you get past all that and find all the good people here, it is hard to get away.

PM me with any more questions, I know I am biased about Boulder but there a ton of other cool places to live out there. Golden, Capitol Hill area, Evergreen, Erie, to name a few.

[Duck_Twacy]

Awesome stuff, thanks all!

Bike21, I can't wait to get back out there. Like I mentioned, I just spent a week out there getting my CFI (at FTG) and, besides missing the wife and kid terribly, had no desire to come back to the east coast. We have friends in Boulder that my wife visited last month, which is when she fell in love with it. He is a retired stockbroker, so we can't really "play" with them. They just moved from Miami and bought some incredible house and property out there somewhere.

I'm not opposed to 'burbs. We live in the city of Richmond now, which we love being in the city and being able to walk to great restaurants, but the downside is the schools are terrible for the ridiculously high taxes we pay - almost double that of the counties. Denver may be the same way.

Last week, my daily pilgrimmage was down Parker St. to the Starbucks at the end of the 17s at APA to work on lesson plans. There seemed to be a lot of families and kids in the sprawl along that road, but still not really that far from Denver proper. Is that still Aurora or is that Centennial/Englewod?

I passed through Boulder on my drive to Estes Park last weekend, and Boulder seemed pretty chill. If I'm trading IT for flight instructing it may not be an option, unless my wife gets another cushy exec job (it's nice being a kept man!). What's between Boulder and BJC? What area is BJC, is that Broomfield?

I'm going to try to set up a slew of interviews and get back out there for a long weekend...and the snowboard WILL come this time!

[jdflight]

Louisville, Lafayette and Superior are between Boulder and BJC, which is in Broomfield, bordering Westminster on the south. Louisville is supposedly the new Boulder, but I say whatever. You can't be the new Boulder and not be this close to the trails. People I know who live in Louisville love it, though.