I am on the verge of accepting a job offer from a company in Miramar, FL. I grew up in Seattle, lived in DC for five years, and I visit NYC every chance I get. The job really appeals to me, but the area is completely different from any other place I’ve lived.
The company is paying for me to visit for a few days, and I have taken the time to drive around. Someone in another SDMB thread mentioned the sprawl - that’s all I’ve seen. Yuck!
Can any Florida dopers recommend non-sprawl neighborhoods in Broward County? People at the company offering me the job suggested Davie, Weston, Hollywood, and Plantation. I’ve tried driving around those areas, but I haven’t found anything that I was looking for, like old brick apartment buildings. It may be such things don’t exist here.
I would love to find a city apartment with all sorts of cool stuff within walking distance, such as coffee shop, book stores, etc. Any suggestions?
There’s a LOT of sprawl here, although I’m right near downtown Hollywood and that’s very developed since it’s east of I95. I do love it, but you’re not going to find a lot of wide open spaces.
My husband said that you’ll have to look westward to find someplace that isn’t highly developed (west of Miramar, which is where he’s working right now).
For what it’s worth, you’ll hear a lot of bad stuff about FL and Broward county- I’ve only been here 3 months, but I’d spent a lot of time here years ago as well. I love it, and I love living near downtown Hollywood- it’s a really fun town.
He also said that all of the cities you listed are nice, but all are very developed. He said to avoid Pembroke. Plantation and Davie are his two top choices (outside of Hollywood, which we are biased for).
I take it that by "non-sprawl’ you means trying to avoid 'burbs where you gotta get everywhere by car and the nearest commerce is a Walgreens or a Publix. that you’re looking for a downtown.
In So. Fla. I have the feeling that’s gonna cost you…
Downtown Hollywood may be your best bet, but that will be a long commute to Miramar. Get to Hollywood Blvd. and go east from I-95. Check out Harrison, Johnson, Taft street area, east of Young Circle. Thats as close to a downtown kind of area as you’re going to get. There is a nice several block area with some bars, bookstores, upscale shops, etc. The buildings are a bit older there (talking ~1950s, some younger, rather than 80s and 90s) so there’s a bit more character- most everywhere else in south florida has no character at all. Remember that real estate commercial where the realtor is driving a couple around in a cookie cutter subdivision (“We said NO ranch-style houses” “this is more of a Tudor inspired ranch. . .”)? That’s what most places are like.
Davie used to be a “country” kind of place, with horse hitching posts in front of the McDonald’s, etc. There are farmers markets in that area and some larger lot houses, a few farms, but its still suburban sprawl.
In short, south florida is almost all sprawl. Brick apartment buildings? Lived there for 25+ years, never saw one. Maybe a really expensive renovated place in downtown Miami or downtown Ft. Lauderdale. (though neither of those are ‘downtown’ in the good, urban renewal way. Just corporate buildings and starbucks.) If you are really interested in that kind of life, pay the extra bucks and move into downtown Hollywood.
I forgot to mention- if character, cool bookshops, etc. is what you’re looking for, avoid Pembroke Pines and Weston. They’ve basically sprung up in the past 15 years or less. They have gotten more and more crowded over time, and the surface streets can’t handle it. They are your typical suburban sprawl areas.
As I think of it more, I agree with exastris- I’m just a few blocks from downtown Hollywood and it really is a neat town. I asked my husband (he commutes to different areas) and he said Miramar wouldn’t be too bad a commute from here- in fact, he was working there last year.
Hey exastris- do you live in/near Hollywood? I moved here in November and love it.
If Tehanu does decide to move here, I’d recommend east of US 1- it’s like a different world entirely across US1 and south of downtown Hollywood. I regret not knowing that before I moved here, because I"m about 2 blocks into kind of an iffy area.
Oh, and we were driving on Sunrise Blvd (West) toward Sawgrass Mills mall yesterday, and despite that huge mall nearby, there seemed to be a lot of nice quiet area out there. Might warrent looking into.
Does Broward County even have brick buildings anywhere? My girlfriend has lived there since she was 5, and when I first started to go down to visit her, I noticed a surprising lack of bricks. Then when would she come to visit me in Chicago, she noticed that everything seemed so “dark” because of so much brick.
As far as I can tell, there are no old brick buildings in Broward County.
Weston and Plantation are pretty new. As recently as 1977 there wasn’t anything much west of 441 that wasn’t farmland, heck, even as late as the 80s Davie was still the edge of everything.
Pembroke is totally built up and the city managment is crap. Avoid. Weston finally got a decent bookstore and a couple of grocerystores you could walk to if you live in the 55+ community or one of the other two communities on the south side of town - otherwise you are out of luck. Suburbia all around.
For ‘dowtown’ living, you are best off in downtown Hollywood - it’s the straightest shot back out to Mirimar. Otherwise find a job downtown and live downtown, or along the Tri-Rail line. They are going to real honest to goodness 20 min train service in a couple of months, making some commutes a little more useful (I’ve been waiting 5+ years for it to get reliable, and when I moved out of the Weston/Davie/Plantation/Sunrise area I chose to move closer to the line to be able to commute that way ‘someday’).
Another option is Sunrise. If your job is off of I-75, you could think about the condos they are building right off of the 869 - walking distance to that mall out there where you would have a choice of restaurants and even a couple of bookstores. Traffic is a nightmare on game or concert nights, but the schedule is available and you could work late or from home those days to avoid the crush.
As to the question of old brick buildings - probably not. Old CBS or woodframe, that’s about it. Brick-faced. Oh, and I would not suggest buying a condo conversion - a ton of those old apartment buildings were built like crap and it’s easier to turn them into condos than try to get through another couple of hurricane seasons and then need to repair the dang things, or so the management companies think.
We’re fresh out of brick, but I lived next to Young Circle for years and had a blast. Mmm, Argentango. My girlfriend at the time had this little one bedroom twenty feet from the beach, and about a block away from Le Tub. Weekends we’d leave the door open, go stroll the boardwalk, and live in total relaxation. I’d move back in a heartbeat, no idea why I left. Hollywood has its downside though, like pre-Babylonian sewage and water drainage. I watched my 80s converitble float away one night in a flashflood, sonofa!
Little places tucked away around Las Olas are old and cute, but Las Olas is decidedly touristy and less secluded than Hollywood. Some smaller Fort Lauderdale neighborhoods like Victoria Park and Sailboat Bend have old duplexes and apartments, but those neighborhoods have been overrun in recent years. I’d check around the Galleria Mall area. Just about everything is in a strip mall here, but the closer you get to the beaches the more you’ll find those malls containing used bookstores, coffee shops that aren’t Starbucks (or are Starbucks run by good folks), little cafes and tiny galleries.
Without knowing your price range it’s hard to be specific, though.
Other than that, it’s pretty much all sprawl crap. Once I go west of 95 my lip curls up in a sneer of derision.
Buying in this market is suicidal imho, rent isn’t too bad if you shop around. My old digs in Hollywood was an ancient 2/1 house I rented for like $500 a month.
Wow, when was that? Just curious. I’m renting half of a duplex, maybe 1,000 sq feet or so, it’s a corner house so there’s a tiny yard, decent patio. A few blocks from US 1, about 8 blocks south of downtown Hollywood. 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1 office, tiny kitchen, few closets. 900/month. Maybe I’m getting hosed? It’s a decent place, though- new stuff inside, new tile, double driveway (all ours) and they let me have my dogs (3 of them). We’re going to look across US1 when our lease is up, though- we picked a bad street- a main crossover street that’s heavily travelled and we’re at a 4 way stop, which really sucks. But if we move at least now we’ll have time to look- when we moved it was very fast and I didn’t have a lot of choice.
Three years back. When I say ancient I mean it though, and not so much in a quaint way. The landlord was an old Italian guy who lived on the street and owned alot of the properties, but he was old enough not to provide any repairs. You could deduct big stuff from the rent but he’d moan about it. His kids lived in the area too, so if they caught him trying to drive (or escape I guess) everyone would catch hell for it. He passed away and the half the street had to move, because the family wanted to sell everything.
So, $500 was a deal as long as you’d run interference when he called the cops for non-existant burglars, put up with his kids and make sure you checked with him before you went to the store in case he needed more Fig Newtons. Plus he liked to wander in when you were away and appropriate things…like all my butterknives one day.
Fresh biscotti on rent days though. So it was a deal, but not that much of one. I still miss the neighborhood. My waistline definitely misses that little donut shop on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. before you got I-95, amazing apple fritters and open until 10 or 11. I lost ten pounds moving to Lauderdale.
I’m a sucker for the coffee shop downtown on the corner of S20th and Harrison, myself. I try to stick with just coffee and skip the pastries but it’s hard.
I didn’t realize we had so many South FL dopers. Maybe a small dopefest is in order sometime soon?
Tehanu: did you end up accepting the job? Keep us updated and just shout if I can do anything to assist you, OK?
