My 23 year old neph from Boise is moving there for work and is looking for an apartment. First job out of college and it sounds like a decent one.
I know nothing about the area but want to help him out a bit. Any suggestions would be a big help.
Thanx...Art

I like the West side of Olympia, just a wee bit closer to the great fishing down the road!!!

+1, Lacy has turned into quite the sh!thole. . .. .. W side or south towards Tumwater/Littlerock.

living in downtown olympia isn't bad at all. apartments are cheap and the crime rate is pretty low.

lacey has become a shining example of how not to let developers run rampant. it's an urban sprawn and traffic nightmare.

McCleary

Anybody who says Lacey is a traffic nightmare and says West Oly is the place to be is a crackhead.

Go through that clusterf.uck at Black Lake Blvd and Cooper Point Rd. and then tell me the west side is any better than Lacey.

Tell him to look in SE Oly, south of Tumwater, or out toward Andy's place in McCleary. Short commute, and way more bang for your buck in housing. Hell, even Shelton is a pretty short drive to Oly..............but it IS Shelton.

Elma. I have a house within 5 minutes walk of a good . . . nay great, salmon hole.

And its for sale.

And it opens on September 15th this year.

Achewter,

Unfortunately, Lacey does suck. It's not even a city. It just thinks it is, but no one on earth can locate downtown Lacey because it doesn't exist. There are a few nice residential developments in Lacey, but that doesn't mitigate the fact that Lacey sucks. And if your nephew is planning on living in an apartment, well if he does that in Lacey, he might as well leave the door open all the time to better accomodate the routine burglaries in the area. Apartments in Lacey are hazo-housing.

Dan is right that the apartment neighborhoods in west Oly aren't much, if any, better. Something about that apartment crowd I suppose.

The crime map clearly shows SE Oly and Tumwater as the better bets in apartments to avoid routine car prowls and breakins. Then again, Dogfish's digs out by McCleary are usually quiet and peaceful.

That's about it. BTW, did anyone mention that Lacey sucks?

Sg

I'm going to suggest south Oly. Like Grand Mound and pound. Now there is great place.

i think where to live will depend on the life style he wants. city tumwater area. also weather might play mccleary elma area have a different weather pattern compared to olympia rochester area. mccleary elma tend to be cooler in the summer and have a shorter growing season and have more rain.

That's why they make grow lights.

Vic's Pizza is a good reason to locate in West Oly. Plan your drive to avoid the Cooper Pt/BLB intersection and you wont have any trouble. McCleary/Elma are full of hillbilly tweeker kidnappers and are an hour's drive out of town.
Im out on Cooper Point, a 5 minute walk from the busline downtown if I wanna get schitty and not risk a DUI, I have no freeway/highway/railroad noise, the only crime has been 1 car prowl in the 5 years ive been here. They caught the punk a few days later. My kid and dog play in the street with all the other neighbour kids & dogs like something out of some 50's TV show. I can get 2 kinds of pizza and chinese delivered, I have a milkman, fer crissakes. I get broadband cable. If I wanna score some ganja, I'm a 20 minute freeway drive to Tumwater. If I want some Crack or Heroin, its a 20 minute drive to Lacey.

I used to live in East Olympia. The vagrants sleeping in my yard and stealing schit out of my carport became a weekly occurance. Same with the crackhouse across the street getting raided at 4 AM.

Yeah, West Oly sucks alright. Move out to the sticks.

You had some great stuff in that carport. Crashed on yard several times too.

Questions need to be answered before you narrow it down.

What type of farm animals does he like to do?

Now thats funny
Thanks for all the help everyone. Keep it coming. I have driven through a hundred time but I just don't get off the freeway when I do. Area west of Oly always looked good to me but he may be more into the city for the social part of it. Kid always has the hottest girls.

you're related to Merg?

Like the jogging stroller sans wheels?

i said downtown, not west oly! there isn't much in west olympia worth noting anyway, other than the traffic and the crapital mall.

shelton is like taking tenino, putting it next to a bay with no real fishing to speak of, and giving it all of tacoma's crime. other than the fact that land is cheap(like lacey was 20 years ago when my folks moved there), i couldn't imagine living in that place.

When I was about 23 I lived in an apt up on Tumwater Hill. Lots of college girls around it was a good time to be young and single. If that's your nephew's situation I'd say take a look there. Lots of apt's and some have decent views.