Boyd Rd, Pleasant Hill

Boyd Road is a relatively quiet Pleasant Hill street to the west of Highway 680, where everything is fairly residential. It is close to the Monument Exit, is relatively leafy and has moderate traffic.

I came here over the weekend to take a look at apartments.

Boyd is only about 10 blocks long, connecting Contra Costa Blvd to Pleasant Hill Road. On the eastern end near Contra Costa Blvd. is where the apartments are located.(There is also a Hyatt Hotel there and Monsoon Masala restaurant.) There was actually a one bedroom in one of these complexes priced below $1000. This is in an okay complex with a fitness room and laundry.

The rest of Boyd is made up of single family homes. These are mostly Ranch styles homes but they date from the late 40’s to 80’s as far as I can tell. (The ones from the 80’s are Contemporary style, of course.) The median home price is estimated at around $500K, though most homes on and around Boyd seem to sell for closer to $600K. A 1900 ft. 1960 Rancher on a 10,000 ft. lot sold for $550 K at the end of last year, for example.

One of the benefits of living on this side of 680 is the strong schools. Sequoia Elementary and Sequoia Middle School which are both on Boyd, have API’s of 10 and 8 respectively. And Strandwood Elementary which also serves Boyd Road has an API of 10. College Park High School is also above average with an API of 7. (This is a world of difference from some of the weaker schools you find to the east of 680.)

As far as commuting goes, you can get as far south as Pleasanton, north as Fairfield, east as Brentwood, and all important west as West Oakland. But you are also only a mile from BART, so in combination you should be able to get most anywhere in the Central Bay. (Silicon Valley would be more of a reach however.)

As to crime, it is fairly contained to the nearby commercial areas. Along the quiet residential streets like Boyd, assaults are mostly of the domestic variety. Near the movie theater there are the occasional reported fights and robberies, but nothing that should worry Boyd residents.

The big draw for Boyd residents is the proximity of all the shopping and eateries that are within walking distance. As far as shopping goes, you have everything from a Ross, Bed Bath & Beyond, Tub World and a Michael’s to a Verizon, Staples and Pet Food Express and a Staples. You also have you choice of supermarkets (there is both a Luckys and a Safeway in walking distance). You also have a ton of restaurants around here: from a Boston Market and Chipotle to a Jack’s Grill and Daphne’s Californian Greek restaurant.

You also have a plethora of movie going options. For mainstream movies, you have the Century 16 just a block north. (They are currently showing Lincoln, The Hobbit, Les Miserables, Jack Reacher and This is 40, among others.) If you have more eclectic tastes in film, you might check out the Cinearts dome theater on the other side of 680. (They are currently showing Zero Dark Thirty on the big theater, but also the Michael Haneke movie about aging, Amour; a movie about a love affair between boxer and woman that has recently lost her legs, Rust and Bone; and the FDR period piece, Hyde Park on the Hudson.) Both theaters are owned by the same company, so you can be assured of fairly different fair to avoid cannibalizing each others’ audiences.

Put simply, if you like shopping, eating and seeing movies, you will not have to get into your car to do it if you live on Boyd.