People moving to the River Region (military families, relocators, etc.) have caused Prattville, AL to explode in the last decade.  Once a rural commuter town, Prattville is now a solid city.

Prattville residents now shop, eat, and play at home.   10 years ago this wasn’t the case, but now my family loves to take a shopping trip to Bass Pro Outdoor World, and then have dinner at Jim ’n Nicks BBQ in Prattville.

So why do some people choose Prattville?  For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts:

1) Small town feel – The City of Prattville says the population in 2002 was 25,500, and it’s growing steadily.  But that’s a lot smaller than Montgomery’s 200,000+ count.  Plus, there’s a lot of history and civic pride in this community.  Check out their website here.

2) Public Schools – The Autauga County school system has a solid reputation from K-12th grade. These include the schools in Autaugaville, Pine Level, Marbury, Billingsley, and the City of Prattville.

3) Proximity to Montgomery and military bases – Hop on I-65 south and it’s minutes to Maxwell AFB and downtown Montgomery.

4) Residential and commercial development- Prattville has new residential communities with similar amenities to new neighborhoods in east Montgomery. There’s a Target (enough said), new restaurants, and the Robert Trent Jones Capitol Hill golf complex.

Like I said, these are merely my observations.   Any Prattvillians want to add your two cents?  Let us know about life in Prattville by leaving us a comment.

Thorington Trace is an established neighborhood in east Montgomery with relatively new, mid-priced homes, and a great proximity to new public schools. 

From what I can tell from the curb, homes average somewhere around 1,600-2,00- square feet, and the neighborhood is designed to be a destination, not a thoroughfare (read – no thru traffic). 

The feeling is rural, but the neighborhood is really close to The Shoppes at Eastchase, Target, Publix, and the new Wal-Mart and Home Depot on Chantilly parkway. I took a picture of an average street in Thorington Trace so you can get the feel of it:

If public schools are a priority, Blount Elementary and (the under construction) Carr Middle schools are less than a mile down Ray Thorington Road.  We have some friends who have 5 kids (one 1st grader and a younger set of quads) who moved to Thorington Trace specifically for the public schools.  I’m sure they’re not the only ones!

As Montgomery marches eastward, Ray Thorington Road is no longer the end of the line – it is a major attraction with churches, ballfields, new schools, and schools under construction.  New neighborhoods are springing up alongside established ones on both sides of the road. 

What’s life like in Thorington Trace?  Help us get to know your neighborhood and leave a comment below!

I drove down Ray Thorington road this morning, and saw some real earth moving at the site of east Montgomery’s newest school, Johnnie R. Carr Middle School. 

There’s been hope that a new middle school would be built in east Montgomery for some time now, so I thought I’d share some pics so you can see that it really is happening!

 Carr Middle School will be right beside Blount Elementary School on Ray Thorington Road. 

 According to this article in the Montgomery Advertiser, the 119,000-square-foot school will cost about $22 million, and will serve 800 stu­dents.  It is scheduled to open in August of 2009.  Carr is named after civil rights activist, Johnnie R. Carr, who was a part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1954.

Would you like to buy or sell a home in this Montgomery school zone?  We’re real familiar with this area and would be glad to help.  Contact us by phone or email at this page.

There’s been a lot of talk about Pike Road lately. 

It’s taken a good bit of research to figure out exactly what (and where) Pike Road is, but if you haven’t been out that way lately (east Montgomery County), there’s a lot going on.

The Town of Pike Road website is excellent, and helps tie together all the threads that make up this on-the-move community.  Click here to check it out.

The buzz these days is Pike Road’s future school system.  A Pike Road school (K-12) will be in Montgomery County, but independent of the Montgomery Public Schools.  They have the land, the design, the curriculum, the university partnerships;  once the magic number of 5,000 residents is hit, off they’ll go.  The commercial development that will fund this is quickly creeping down Vaughn Road, Chantilly Parkway, and Highway 80.

There’s already a lot of residential development going on in Pike Road, too:  Lochshire, Providence, Bridle Brook, The Waters, Cawfield,to name a few neighborhoods.  Some are very high end; some are quite affordable.  You can buy a home in an established neighborhood, or you can build your own in a new development.  And with such close acess to I-85, it’s not as far out as it used to be.

Looks like country’s come to town, and it’s bringing a school with it. 

Okay, so it won’t be a dance number out of West Side Story, but residents in east Montgomery do take pride in their amenities.  As you know, in the South, it’s hot most of the time.  So if you move into a neighborhood with a community pool, all the better.

While we won’t settle this rumble here, maybe you can at least learn about the different neighborhood pools in east Montgomery:

1.  – Deer Creek  – Deer Creek is unusual in that it has a water splash park along with the pool.  This is a recent addition, put in a couple of years ago.  It is a hit with non-swimming kids as well as adolescents.  Deer Creek also has a separate baby pool with a zero entry, wade in feature which is nice.  This is the pic on the right.

2. Sturbridge- Sturbridge’s pool has a great family feel.  It’s right in the center of the neighborhood, and has a separate kids pool with water feature.  Sturbridge also has a really big area that is covered so that parents can sit in the shade while the kids play in the water, and the YMCA offers swim lessons here in the summer.

3. Woodland Creek - See pic to the left. This is a new neighborhood by Lowder New Homes. The Craftsman-style clubhouse looks really cool, and and the pool design looks nice too.  We haven’t been swimming here yet, but its setting in the trees makes it feel private, and the architectural detail makes for good eye candy. 

Call it like you see it.  You decide which is best.

Help us all and comment below – tell us what you like or don’t like about your neighborhood pool.  Or, if an event is going on that you would like publicized, let us know by commenting below.