What’s it like living in Lakewood Ranch with teens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another sarasota person here who doesn't understood why people move to LWR, even though I understand they do.

We have MS age kids and live west of the trail. All our friends with similar age kids live near us, in Palmer Ranch, or siesta key. Tons of families. Everyone goes to Pineview, sarasota middle school, or one of the privates -- which aren't that expensive down here relative to up north. Don't live in LWR if you're commuting to LBK. Terrible life.

Update: I’m OP and we did rule out LWR.

We have moved and are renting in downtown while we look to buy west of trail. I drive through it daily and still don’t see kids many kids but I’ll take your word that they are somewhere here.

Thanks for input.

If you want neighborhoods where kids are out running around, look in Palmer ranch. Pineview has a whole bus that fills up just from its stops in turtle rock - and that’s just one community in Palmer ranch. I have many friends in Palmer ranch, and there are tons of kids around, book clubs, wine groups etc. We aren’t really hoa people, so we skipped it, but it is filled with kids.

We are west of the trail between siesta and the landings and there are lots of kids around, but the vibe isn’t for kids to play outside. We wish it was, but it just never has been. But I’d say 20-25 percent of the houses have school age kids in them. And if you include recent empty nesters with college age kids, it’s about half of our neighbors. So we hang out with neighbors quite a lot, though the kids don’t hang out. But there are random pockets of awesomeness that you never know about until you move there. Like, we have friends on water view ct behind river view high, and it’s kids bonanza.

But realistically, by middle school, most kids are doing organized activities, homework, hanging out with friends from school, and playing on their computers inside. So I’m not sure how much id worry about finding a neighborhood with kids, so much as making sure it’s not just old people. But I don’t think anywhere in srq is all old ppl anymore.

This is super helpful, thank you.

My kids are 15 and 13 and don’t necessarily play outside, but my oldest bikes a ton, and we were hoping he might find someone local to cruise around with. We are coming from Fort Lauderdale where everyone is scattered based on school attendance, so I certainly expect that kids will live everywhere, I guess just hoping west of trail might have some more local kids in the event their friends don’t live close.

Again, thanks, this was super helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another sarasota person here who doesn't understood why people move to LWR, even though I understand they do.

We have MS age kids and live west of the trail. All our friends with similar age kids live near us, in Palmer Ranch, or siesta key. Tons of families. Everyone goes to Pineview, sarasota middle school, or one of the privates -- which aren't that expensive down here relative to up north. Don't live in LWR if you're commuting to LBK. Terrible life.

Update: I’m OP and we did rule out LWR.

We have moved and are renting in downtown while we look to buy west of trail. I drive through it daily and still don’t see kids many kids but I’ll take your word that they are somewhere here.

Thanks for input.

If you want neighborhoods where kids are out running around, look in Palmer ranch. Pineview has a whole bus that fills up just from its stops in turtle rock - and that’s just one community in Palmer ranch. I have many friends in Palmer ranch, and there are tons of kids around, book clubs, wine groups etc. We aren’t really hoa people, so we skipped it, but it is filled with kids.

We are west of the trail between siesta and the landings and there are lots of kids around, but the vibe isn’t for kids to play outside. We wish it was, but it just never has been. But I’d say 20-25 percent of the houses have school age kids in them. And if you include recent empty nesters with college age kids, it’s about half of our neighbors. So we hang out with neighbors quite a lot, though the kids don’t hang out. But there are random pockets of awesomeness that you never know about until you move there. Like, we have friends on water view ct behind river view high, and it’s kids bonanza.

But realistically, by middle school, most kids are doing organized activities, homework, hanging out with friends from school, and playing on their computers inside. So I’m not sure how much id worry about finding a neighborhood with kids, so much as making sure it’s not just old people. But I don’t think anywhere in srq is all old ppl anymore.

This is super helpful, thank you.

My kids are 15 and 13 and don’t necessarily play outside, but my oldest bikes a ton, and we were hoping he might find someone local to cruise around with. We are coming from Fort Lauderdale where everyone is scattered based on school attendance, so I certainly expect that kids will live everywhere, I guess just hoping west of trail might have some more local kids in the event their friends don’t live close.

Again, thanks, this was super helpful.

With kids that age, I would just move where you want. There are enough young people who moved to SRQ in the last 10 years that there are kids in all the neighborhoods. But at that age, your kids are very unlikely to make friends with random neighbor kids. Even in the super kid friendly neighborhoods, I just don't think that is happening at that age. So i would target a neighborhood you like and assume there will be kids there -- so you don't feel like the odd ones out. But assume the adults might make friends while the kids are unlikely to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The school’s are horrible

No one with brains moves their kids to Lakewood ranch.

It’s full of racists and right wing nut jobs .

My goodness are you filled with hate. I hope things get better for you, really.

[Anonymous]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/MovingToLakewoodRanchSarasota/?ref=share_group_link