EN

My husband and I moved to the neighborhood in 2014. Previously, we had owned a home on the east side of Old Town, and in between, for a short period of time, rented a small house on the west side of Old Town (just to provide some background on where we've lived locally). Our street is pretty quiet, and I would say that the neighborhood as a whole is generally the same. There are many older residents (70-90+) who have lived here for decades (some of them bought their homes from the original developer in the early 1960s). There are also several houses with renters. Most of those renting are younger couples or young couples with 1-2 young children. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot in between. Some of our neighbors go out of the way to be friendly, while others keep to themselves, which has been pretty typical in our experience in various neighborhoods in Longmont. The exception to the quiet seems to be the high school. When they have outside events going on (track races, football, etc), it can get fairly boisterous (we can hear the announcer inside our home that is a few blocks away), but it's nice to have some liveliness as the neighborhood tends to be very quiet, and the noise never lasts too long.

The traffic on Francis can be a little intense at school drop off/pick up times (the high school, middle school and elementary school are all within a few blocks of this neighborhood), but usually clears out quickly.

There are several food places within quick walking distance (smoothies, coffee, sandwiches, pizza, Mexican, Italian, greasy spoon), and a gym just went in recently, which has been a nice addition.

Public transportation is easily accessed on Francis Street too, so if you need to take the bus, it is easy to get to.

The hospital is within walking distance (less than half a mile - give or take), making doctors appointments or emergencies much easier. The down side of this is the sirens from ambulances that run through multiple times a day. It has not bothered us, but if someone is sensitive to noise, it could become an issue.

If you are a person who prefers to walk or bike for transportation, there is easy access to streets with bike lanes and sidewalks. Plus, being pretty much in the center of town makes it easy to get just about anywhere in a few minutes. As an added bonus, there is a bike shop getting ready to open across from the high school before summer begins in 2016.

Grocery stores are not horribly convenient to this area, though living at the center of town makes it easy to pick a direction and go. The nearest grocery store (at 17th/Hover) is a Safeway that is not well-stocked as far as fresh fruit and vegetables go. If you're looking for packaged items, this store is fine and is the closest one to this neighborhood, but for fresh and/or organic food, you'll probably be traveling to another location.

Yard care: Some people are great about maintaining their yards, others let them turn to weeds and/or let the grass grow to be a foot high in the summer. In the winter, some are great about shoveling sidewalks, while others are not. I think all of this is to be expected with an aging demographic though, and we do our best to try to help those who need it.

Some people have taken to referring to this area as an extension of Old Town (or "Old North"). I don't think it's quite reached that status, but with increasing home prices, I'm sure it will get there as people begin to realize that paying $400k for a 700 sq ft home in OT just isn't worth it when they can be blocks away and pay much less.