Re: They have internet in Gilbert now. Movin' on up!***

....Lexington is probably the best place to be.

Clean, nice people. Great schools. Decent shopping/restaurants. Lake Murray is awesome too.

A good population of Clemson fans/grads. Overall, a good community to live in. Not that trashy feel you get as you get closer to Columbia & USC.

The traffic, summer heat, and ever-present USC fans are some of the cons of living here though. Another beef I have is lack of local trails or parks.

While growing up in God's country in the Upstate, I swore the midlands would be the last place in the world I would ever live. God had other plans though, putting a Lexington girl in my life who I failed to uproot from her home. So here I am 23 years later still living in Lexington, but overall I'd say it's been better than I expected.

Sludgemuffin

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Hey Daredevil - are you planning to open a business in Lex?

Jul 4, 2013, 11:00 AM

One of your comments sounded like you may be planning to open a business in Lexington. I'm a 20 year resident and also grew up in West Columbia before moving to Lexington. I work in real estate - don't sell it - but my work requires study of demographics and trends.

Just a couple of thoughts from me:

Lexington is going to continue to be one of the fastest growing counties in the state for the foreseeable future. I think only Beaufort County was outgrowing Lexington County prior to the real estate bubble and that may have changed in the last few years with Lexington now on top.

The schools in Lexington County, particularly District 1 and District 5, are always ranked at or near the top in the state and this, along with Lake Murray, is the major attraction for people moving to Lexington. Lexington 1 is the area around the town of Lexington and District 5 is the Dutch Fork area north of Irmo. Lexington 1 is opening a new high school this year, River Bluff High School, and it has a campus that will rival any small college.

River Bluff High School, in addition to the amazing facilities (take a look at the pics on their website), will have a different learning environment and class scheduling will be similar to college class scheduling. Teachers will have offices and not designated classrooms, the school has no lockers (ipads instead) and the lunch room will be open for something like 4 hours as kids will be lunching at various times. A lot more responsibility will be given to the student and it will be heavily focused in the arts; there are families I know that are moving from one part of Lexington to another just so their kid can attend River Bluff instead of Lexington High.

I think the politics in Lexington will be changing going forward as Jake Knotts finally got booted and a more liberal minded councilwoman took his place. I'm neither strictly liberal or conservative but I mention the changing of politics because I think a 1 cent sales tax will eventually get voted in as it was just recently voted in over in Richland County. What this means is the traffic situation everyone is complaining about in this thread will get some help as those 1 cent taxes typically go strictly to transportation needs.

I don't know what kind of business you may be intending to open, but the Hwy 378 corridor between I-20 and Hwy 6 will always be a great location and there are a lot of national retail chains located there. Traffic is so tight in the area though that medians may be installed at some locations to prevent left turns - so be wary of this if your business is impulse based. Also, the area near the library and on Hwy 1 has seen a lot of new local business moving into the area.

Actually, the fastest growing commercial area for the last few years has been near the intersection of Platt Springs Road and Hwy 6. This has been somewhat of a boom area even though the real estate market was in the toilet for a few years. It's the Red Bank area, which always was associated with a more "red neck" crowd but that was many years ago, however you will find quite a bit more inexpensive housing in that area.

I do hope the 1 cent sales tax passes soon as the area does need some help with traffic but more importantly would be some walking and biking paths and public recreation areas that our community sorely needs more of. The walkway across the Lake Murray ### gets worn out by people using it, as does the beach area at the ### which has unrealized potential because SCE&G still owns and runs it. Along with that, the Saluda River can be opened up for more public use.

Anecdotally, the demographics seem to be changing a bit. Lexington has been full of families moving here, primarily for the schools, and I had one teacher from another part of the state tell me one time that the demographics at my son's elementary school "weren't fair" because it was better than a private school - the number of two parent households with both parents having a college degree was way above average. However, there have been more apartment communities built and there are more younger singles in the area than ever before and this is a good thing for lots of different businesses, particularly restaurants and specialty retail.

Hope some of this was helpful.

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Any Tigers living in West Columbia/Lexington?

Life long Lexington resident

More people good for business then?***

Depends

Re: Depends

Re: Any Tigers living in West Columbia/Lexington?

Looking into maybe a move but just curious why you

Re: Any Tigers living in West Columbia/Lexington?

They have internet in Gilbert now. Movin' on up!***