A4HB Homebuyer's Blog

4.3.1 Our Area – Shopping

Downtown Boulder/Pearl Street Mall https://www.boulderdowntown.com/shopping Downtown Boulder Partnership 1942 Broadway, Suite 301 Boulder, CO 80302 303.449.3774   Twenty Ninth Street http://www.twentyninthstreet.com 1710 29th St, Boulder, CO 80301 (303) 444-0722   Village Boulder Shopping Center http://www.villageboulder.com 2525 Arapahoe Ave C220, Boulder, CO 80302 (303) 443-0290   Base-Mar Shopping Center 2450 Baseline Rd, Boulder, CO 80305   Sunrise Center http://sunrisecenterboulder.com 1672 30th St, Boulder, CO 80301   Meadows On the Parkway http://www.phillipsedison.com/properties/meadows-on-the-parkway 4800 Baseline Rd, Boulder, CO 80303 (303) 720-9738 Shopping   Downtown Boulder/Pearl Street Mall https://www.boulderdowntown.com/shopping Downtown Boulder Partnership 1942 Broadway, Suite 301 Boulder, CO 80302 303.449.3774   Twenty Ninth Street

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4.3.3 Our Area – Museums

Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art https://bmoca.org/information/contact visitorservices@bmoca.org 1750 13th Street Boulder, CO 80302 303.443.2122   Museum of Boulder https://www.museumofboulder.org info@museumofboulder.org 2205 Broadway Boulder, CO 80302 (303) 449-3464   Boulder County Educational Services and Museums https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/education   Broomfield Depot Museum www.broomfield.org/120/Broomfield-Depot-Museum jainlay-conley@broomfield.org 2201 West 10th Ave Broomfield, CO 303-460-6824   CU Art Museum https://www.colorado.edu/cuartmuseum/about samuel.bair@colorado.edu Visual Arts Complex 1085 18th Street Boulder, CO 80309-0459 303-492-8300   CU Museum of Natural History https://www.colorado.edu/cumuseum cumuseum@colorado.edu 15th and Broadway Boulder, CO 80309 303-492-6892   Museum of Boulder https://www.museumofboulder.org info@museumofboulder.org 2205 Broadway Boulder, CO 80302 (303) 449-3464   CU Heritage Center https://www.colorado.edu/alumni/heritagecenter allyson.smith@colorado.edu CU Heritage

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4.3.2 Our Area – Farmer’s Markets

Louisville Farmer’s Market http://realfarmersmarketco.com/louisville-farmers-market kellyenterprisesltd@gmail.com 824 Front Street Louisville 80027 (303) 902-2451   Erie Farmer’s Market http://realfarmersmarketco.com/erie-farmers-market kellyenterprisesltd@gmail.com Briggs Street Between Wells and Moffatt Erie 80516 (303) 902-2451   Boulder County Farmers’ Markets http://www.bcfm.org atyourservice@bcfm.org Boulder –  On 13th Street Between Canyon & Arapahoe Longmont – 9595 Nelson Road Lafayette – 600 S. Public Rd. 303-910-2236

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4.3.4 Our Area – The Arts

Boulder Office of Arts + Culture https://boulderarts.org chasanskym@boulderlibrary.org Main Boulder Public Library at 1001 Arapahoe, Boulder, CO, 80302 303-441-4113     Boulder County Arts Alliance https://www.bouldercountyarts.org info@bouldercountyarts.org 2590 Walnut Street, Suite 9 Boulder, CO 80302 303.447.2422   Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art http://bmoca.org visitorservices@bmoca.org 1750 13th Street Boulder, CO 80302 303.443.2122   Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company http://betc.org info@betc.org 2590 Walnut St Boulder, Colorado (303) 351-2382   Dairy Arts Center https://tickets.thedairy.org 2590 Walnut Street Boulder, Colorado 80302 303.440.7826   Denver Center for the Performing Arts https://www.denvercenter.org Between Speer Boulevard and 14th Street, and between Arapahoe and Champa streets Denver, Colorado 303.893.4100

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4.2.4 Some Thoughts on Comparing Schools

As a former educational researcher, Norris is often appalled by the information that home buyers use in evaluating schools and how they use it. He promotes these few rules of thumb: Rule One: Don’t rely on real estate agents or other parents. In a previous lifetime, I did research in several primary schools in the school district where my children were enrolled. The research involved videotaping full days of interaction between teachers and students and interviewing the teachers about what they were trying to accomplish. I was struck by the lack of correspondence between what was “known” in the community about

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4.2.3 State and National Resources for Comparing Schools

In addition to providing comparative data on public schools, The Colorado Department of Education site contains information on other schools and school districts in Colorado and on private schools and home schooling. It is also an important source for information on test results in schools across the state: CSAP Results — results from Colorado educational testing program ACT Results — results from national college admissions testing Accountability Reports — reports of performance of individual schools The National Center for Education Statistics is the best single source information on schools, school performance, and the demographic composition of communities and schools. If you go to their list of Data

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4.2.2 Schools Districts by County

Wikipedia is a great place to start when you’re looking for information on communities and schools in connection with a home search. They have basic data on all of the counties, communities and school districts in the state of Colorado. In addition to linking to the official school district sites, we’ll also link to the relevant Wikipedia pages for each district. One of the best web sites in Colorado focused on performance stats, financing, and developments in Colorado education is Chalkbeat. There are two public school districts in Boulder County, the Boulder Valley School District in the south half of the county and the St. Vrain School District in the north.

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4.2.1 School Information

Schools in Boulder County, Broomfield County & Jefferson County The quality of community schools is consistently ranked as one of the most important factors in parents’ decisions about where to buy a home. School quality is also important for home buyers who have no children since it has a significant impact on housing values and the ease of selling homes in various communities. In this section, we provide links to information on local schools and how they compare to schools across the country. As a first step, to locate schools in Boulder County, try these links: BVSD School Locator or

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4.1.3 Community Links

For links to local county and city governments, chambers of commerce, and newspapers, use the following list. We linked each county and community listed below to their page on Wikipedia. You’ll find extensive data, commentary, and links on each of these counties and communities on the Wikipedia site. Boulder County Boulder County Government BizWest Boulder Daily Camera Longmont Daily Times-Call Broomfield County Broomfield County Government Jefferson County Jefferson County Government Arvada Arvada Government Arvada Chamber of Commerce City of Boulder Boulder City Government Boulder Chamber of Commerce Boulder Daily Camera Broomfield Broomfield Government Broomfield Chamber of Commerce Broomfield Enterprise Erie Erie

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4.1.2 Other Good Sources of Information

Comparative data on communities around the country, including information on income, crime, schools, and cost of living, can be found on a variety of sites, including Sperling’s Best Places, City-Data and Relocation Essentials. You can use these sites to compare the various Boulder County communities or to compare Boulder County communities to communities elsewhere in the country that you are more familiar with. If you really want to get serious, go to the federal government source for most of this data at FedStats. This site contains data on almost anything. For information on the state of Colorado and on the

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