Another thing…if you can avoid it, you don’t want to be commuting east in the morning or west in the afternoon. The sun can be blinding when it’s low in the sky, and creates more consistant traffic problems than in any other city I’ve lived in.
Thanks for the advice, everybody. I really appreciate it.
By the way,
So will I get killed if I wear my Red Wings jersey? 
Woohoo another follower of the righteous path in the land of the damned. There’s a few bars around for us cool Red Wing people most notably The Tin Lizzie downtown and Lodo’s in well… Lodo.
I have to admit I don’t make it to Aurora very often, so I can’t help you there. It does get pretty nasty right near Colfax, but the more southern areas are friendlier. But depending on where you have to work Check out the University area. It’s a nice place near DU with a fair amount of cool stuff(Bonnie Brae is a cool little area). And it’s on the east side of Denver so it might be passibly commutable, With easier access to downtown.
I moved from the Kansas City area to Aurora almost 4 years ago. I didn’t have much choice in the matter, as I was moving in with my then-fiance, and that’s where he lived. I didn’t really think much about living there while I lived there. The rent was cheap, our neighborhood was safe (if a little boring), and my commute to downtown wasn’t bad.
However, all that being said, in the almost 3 years since I’ve moved out of Aurora, I’ve only come even close to the Aurora city limits ONCE. And it felt like I was driving to fricking Kansas. There simply hasn’t been any reason for me to go there.
I’ve lived near Cherry Creek (at 1st & Ogden), which I LOVED. Currently I live due north of Denver, right off I-25 in Thornton. It seems far away, but my commute to downtown is only about 25 minutes on the bus, and it only takes 45 minutes to get all the way to Littleton for jujitsu practice.
Basically, I’d second the recommendation to get an affordable 6-month lease somewhere, so you can live wherever while getting to know the city, and find what part of town will work for you. Good luck, and welcome to 300 days of sunshine per year!
Hey! I live in Arvada. Well - almost. I’ve got an Arvada phone number, a Westminster address and a Broomfield zip code. Call me Mister On-the-Border.
Arvada-proper - the old-town part of Arvada - is nice. A small community that got overrun by urban sprawl.
Good advice all around. Here’s a Previous Thread on Denver stuff, too. It’s full of good stuff.
I have a choice between three hotels (I have a free three nights stay coupon):
Wyndham Tech Center
7675 East Union Avenue
Denver, CO 80237
Hyatt Regency (Tech Center)
7800 East Tufts Avenue
Denver, CO 80237
Hyatt Regency (Downtown)
1750 Welton Street
Denver, CO 80202
The ones at Tech Center are about four miles from where I’ll be working in Centennial. The downtown Hyatt Regency is about 17 miles. TC Hyatt charges $8/day for self parking, the downtown Hyatt is $20/day. Other than that, any reason why I should stay at one over another?
I’d stay downtown if it were me. Downtown Denver is a fun place, tons of stuff to see and do. The Tech Center is exactly that - a center for Tech companies. It’s an office complex like Crystal City in the D.C. area. Busy during the day, dead at night.
Being able to stroll around the city at night is worth the extra $12/day.
Other than that, Wyndhams have awesome beds.
Keep in mind though, ShibbOleth, the drive is going to be horrendous. Rush hour on I-25 is not fun. And if it snows, or there’s a wreck, you won’t know the back ways. I’d stay at the Tech Center and head out for downtown about 7 o’clock or so.
Is the traffic bad heading out from the city? Most places I’m familiar with the traffic into the city is bad in the morning and out from the city is bad in the evening. I’d be doing the opposite. Does that help?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: I’ve lived here since '91, and traffic has always been bad in any direction. Denver does not have as monolithic a downtown as many other cities its size. People live anywhere, and commute anywhere. However, the Tech Center is the second largest concentration of workers after downtown, and you will be joining the throngs coming from Lakewood, from Thornton, from central Denver, from, well, anywhere. I used to live on Capitol Hill (slightly southeast of downtown) and it consistently took me 25-50 minutes to get to the Tech Center. That was up until six years ago, and it’s only gotten worse. You will also be going through major construction, which is being handled very well, at least three lanes are open all the time and so on, but still, it will be construction all the way from Alameda or so down to the Tech Center.
Well, that was a mini-rant, wasn’t it? Sorry, but I think my opinion is clear.
It’s really your sense of priorities, I guess. If you want to be able to stagger back to your hotel, stay downtown. Otherwise, stay at the Tech Center. You will be able to have a lot of fun downtown; I guess I was leaving that out of the equation.
There’s construction at or near the downtown hotel starting three days before my arrival. That pretty much seals the deal: I’ll stay at Tech Center and venture downtown at night. It could be worse.
I used to be an urban planner for the City of Aurora.
Aurora is actually a very-well planned city … from the context of the 1970s, when the city really boomed. It’s relatively easy on the eyes: there are very strict signage, landscaping and architectural design regulations, the parks and open space system is fantastic, and the development process is a textbook example of micromanagement. However, it’s a very automobile-oriented community, and has a certain sense of sterility about it, like that of many 1970s-era planned communities and new towns. Aurora isn’t a tacky, ugly billboard-cluttered suburb, but it is a suburb nonetheless, and proud of it.
If you can find it, check out Over the Edge, a cult movie from 1979. It deals with a bunch of bored kids in a planned community that didn’t provide for their needs. Over the Edge was filmed in Aurora.
Aurora is called “Saudi Aurora” because there aren’t as many trees there as in communities located further west. Established neighborhoods are green, but new subdivisions located further east have very sparse vegetation. There was a running joke at one time:
Hear about the trajedy in Aurora? The tree died.
Aurora is a very ethnically diverse place, though. It’s supposedly the most integrated large city in the United States; just about every Census tract has numbers that don’t stray far from 60% white, 10% white/Hispanic, 10% black, 10% Asian. It’s home to one of the larest Korean communities in the country, and there are also large numbers of Russian immigrants.
Neighborhoods in North Aurora are iffy by Denver standards. Remember that Denver is a very affluent metropolitan area. Original Aurora – neighborhoods north of 6th Street – is considered to be slum-like, but it really resembles a lower middle class to middle class 1950s-era suburb.
One secret: few of Aurora’s city planners actually live in Aurora. I lived in Denver’s West Highlands/Berkeley neighborhood, a rough-around-the-edges but gentrifying area in northwest Denver. I had a 30-35 minute contraflow commute to work.
> 60% white, 10% white/Hispanic, 10% black, 10% Asian
Which equals about 90%. You get the idea.
Thanks for the advice, everybody. I’m leaving in the morning.