Grand Rapids Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
tell me about Spring Lake (please!)
My husband and our 2 children and I
relocated to GR a little over a year ago from Royal Oak (originally
Birmingham and Rochester Hills). I work downtown, hubby works in
Zeeland. We've been leasing in Kentwood and are now ready to buy,
hopefully in Aug/Sep of this year! 
We love EGR and it has everything we are looking for- schools, walkability, parks, amenities, family-friendly. However, we don't want to pay the extremely high taxes, and would really love to be closer to the lake. We are an active and outdoorsy family so the lakeshore communities appeal to us very much.
That being said, Holland is nice enough but too far of a commute than I'd like to make daily (prob 45 min), and the schools from what I hear and have researched are not the best.
Spring Lake seems great- awesome schools, moderate taxes, small town community with proximity to big town amenities and of course the lake, parks, walking/biking trails, etc.
Anyone have any info/advice they wouldn't mind sharing? How is the commute to downtown GR, esp in rush hours and winter? Any other pros/cons of note? Are there any favored areas in SL, or alternately ones to avoid? Appreciate any and all info- TIA!!
We love EGR and it has everything we are looking for- schools, walkability, parks, amenities, family-friendly. However, we don't want to pay the extremely high taxes, and would really love to be closer to the lake. We are an active and outdoorsy family so the lakeshore communities appeal to us very much.
That being said, Holland is nice enough but too far of a commute than I'd like to make daily (prob 45 min), and the schools from what I hear and have researched are not the best.
Spring Lake seems great- awesome schools, moderate taxes, small town community with proximity to big town amenities and of course the lake, parks, walking/biking trails, etc.
Anyone have any info/advice they wouldn't mind sharing? How is the commute to downtown GR, esp in rush hours and winter? Any other pros/cons of note? Are there any favored areas in SL, or alternately ones to avoid? Appreciate any and all info- TIA!!
Warning
No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
Re: tell me about Spring Lake (please!)
You'll get input from people more in the know.
This is unrelated to your original question, but it's nice to see you here.
AND - HAZEL?! Congratulations! If Henry was a girl, he was going to be Hazel.
We used to rent in Spring Lake, and while there, we did that commute (me to downtown; DH to Zeeland). We bought in Jenison, if that tells you anything about how we felt about the commute.
I didn't like the commute to downtown during the winter, although I was often doing the commute home late at night, so that didn't help matters any. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't fun. I absolutely cannot be late for work, and I quickly got tired of having to leave extra early in the winter. I usually gave myself 45 minutes in the summer and well over an hour in the winter (especially if I was going to have to dig my way out of the driveway...once I made it to the highway it wasn't horrible - typical winter highway driving). I was almost never driving at rush hour, so I can't speak to how that affects the drive.
The commute to Zeeland from Spring Lake is actually 40+ minutes, too, depending on where exactly you're starting and ending and the time of day. DH usually didn't mind the commute, but I thought I'd mention it since you brought up commute times.
Good luck with the decision! It's a nice area!
I used to be the education reporter for the Grand Haven and Spring Lake newspaper, so I can confirm that the SL schools are indeed very good. They have teachers who care, an administration that backs them up and plenty of money to work with, unlike some districts. Their superintendent is new, young, and has kids growing up in the district as well. SLPS consistently gets some of the best scores in the state on the mandated testing - although those might not always be the best indicators of a well-rounded education, it?s still something they like to celebrate. Their community aquatic center is awesome.
As I?m sure you know, Spring Lake is a very wealthy community. Often the kids I interviewed had much better ___ (iPods, cars, etc.) than I did. It was a bit disconcerting to me. At the same time, however, the east side of the district contains Crockery Township, which is a much poorer area and often called the hick part of town. Not nice, I know. The families and kids at school didn?t mix much, which is kind of a bummer. However, Spring Lake in general is a very beautiful town, well-maintained and has a decent local government. The cops can be sometimes over-zealous to issue traffic tickets.
I noticed you said you liked its proximity to a big city - if you are referring to Grand Rapids, keep in mind that it?s really not THAT close. The Spring Lake-Grand Haven-Ferrsyburg area combined is called the Tri-Cities, and even combined it is not a large place. The high school kids I would talk to often told me that they were looking forward to going away to college and living in a city! I think everyone living out there always intends to drive in to Grand Rapids more than they actually end up doing.
As for the commute, I really don?t think you?re going to find it significantly shorter than it would be if you lived in Holland. I did the drive for three years, from downtown Grand Rapids to Grand Haven. It took me 35-40 minutes on average, depending on how much I went over the speed limit. I was on the road in the mornings around 6:30 a.m. and driving home around 4 p.m. However, most people live on the lakeshore and commute to Grand Rapids (the opposite of me), so you would be in the thick of rush hour with everyone else. The winters were about 60% fine, 30% stressful but manageable, 7% white-knuckle, deep breaths, 2% ?OMG this is insane I?m going to die? and 1% beyond my comfort level. I called in to work due to ice/terrible roads twice over three years. Had one car accident due to icy roads (not my fault). My longest commute due to bad weather was 2.5 hours to get home one February. It does wear on you after time. Plus there are always gas costs to consider - I filled up my small, non-hybrid car twice a week and racked up a ton of miles on the car. I was making such a small paycheck already that eventually it just became not worth it, unfortunately.
I know everyone has different comfort levels on driving, different incomes, different priorities, etc. But if I were in your shoes, I would not choose to live in Spring Lake because of where it?s located. To me, that would be like making the decision to have you BOTH do long commutes. Yes, the town is great and probably offers most of what you are looking for in terms of home community. But are you willing to both spend a lot of your day in the car, getting home late, in order to make that happen? Also I see you have kids - where would they go to daycare? Are you willing to have both you and your husband be a half hour or more away from them if/when something comes up?
Good luck making the decision - if you have any questions after reading my novel, feel free to ask. Also, before you write off Holland schools, be sure to check out Black River Public - they?re one of the top charter districts in the whole state.
Welcome back and congrats on the baby. I think Chymes gave you a lot of great advice. I was trying to figure out in my head, how Spring Lake would be less of a commute than Holland. I have an hour commute myself to work and thank goodness my husband only had 15-20 minute drive and daycare is on the way. It would stink big time if we both had commutes. I think when you have kids, you really are going to want one parent closer to home/daycare. Even if you have daycare close to your work, it is nice to have daycare close to home for those rare days you may have off during the week. You still can send the kids to daycare and get stuff done or maybe have a date day with the husband.
One nice thing about West Michigan is that there are a lot of nice parks, trails, and inland lakes, that you still can be an active, outdoorsy family and not be living right by one of the big lakes.
I agree 100% on the daycare issue. My H has a 30-45 minute commute going north and northwest, and our daycare is a 25 minute drive south.
I was off of work for almost 3 weeks recently, and it really sucked having to either have H take our son almost a 1/2 hour (each way) out of his way to drop him off at daycare or leave him at home with me when I wasn't supposed to lift heavy objects, and my son exceeded that limit.
We are switching to a daycare that is 7 minutes from our house, and in the right direction. I'm ridiculously excited about this. We start in a week and a half.
Wow, those PPs are long. I admit I scanned but didn't read thoroughly. I really like Spring Lake and with being just south of Muskegon, there are quite a few resources nearby. However, I don't think that trek across 104 to get to the highway is going to save you any time compared to just living in Zeeland (especially in the winter). I think Hudsonville or Jenison would be a better bet as far as splitting your commute evenly.
Spring Lake, Grand Haven, and even Holland work better for living if you work there too. I have a commute up to Muskegon and I hate it. At least I can write my mileage off most of the time though. Most people don't have that luxury.
I currently live *really* close to Spring Lake (technically Norton Shores but SL post office delivers to us).
I commute to the west side of downtown GR almost everyday. Usually I leave my house between 6:30-7:00 a.m. and have very little issue with traffic. The worst part of the commute home is US 131 to I-96 until exit 28 or 26. I don't have too many problems if I leave a little before 5, but if you're leaving downtown at 5:15, you might as well stay at work until 5:30-5:45 to let traffic clear a bit (you'll get home at the same time).
In the winter, there are usually 5-7 days total (not necessarily consecutive) where the commute is a real PITA. If you have any flexibility to work remotely, that would be extremely helpful. My commute typically takes 35-45 minutes and there have been winter days where it takes 1.5 hours (usually due to an accident).
Your H's commute to Zeeland will probably be worse than your commute to downtown. My H also works in Zeeland.
The one con to living in Spring Lake is being on the east side of the channel from Grand Haven/Lake Michigan you might find it surprisingly inconvenient to get to the big lake. M-104 Westbound can be really congested in the summer, and especially during Coast Guard. I'm not sure where exactly in Spring Lake you're looking (it's a pretty big area), but there are some houses I love right across from the library (which is fantastic, BTW) that are for sale right now. We had some friends who lived further east, towards the bayous and that area is nice and quiet. Just remember that the further east you go on M-104, the worse your H's commute to Zeeland will be (I wouldn't want to have to drive M-104 from the drawbridge all the way out toward Nunica during rush hour).
All of that said, it is a GREAT place to live. We love it here. Feel free to ask any other specific questions!