Neighborhood Near Ewing Park, South Des Moines (Union: fit in, 2014)

[Saylor91]

Has anyone lived down here or does live down here at all? It doesent seem to be that bad of a neighborhood but I really don't know I haven't been down there at all before. I found a house that is on South West 2nd street and I was just wanting to know if its a safe area to move too without a lot of crime. The South ridge mall is also right down the street as well. If you could tell me some information about this area that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Steven

[schmink]

I would think twice about that area. I lived on S. Union not to far from there, and
heard of lots of break-ins in that area. As far as southridge it is almost empty.

[mofford]

Well, they have done some cosmetic work on Army Post Road over the past few years, and have plans to redo SW 9th with a beautification project that starts this year. Southridge has a Target and Sears, movie theater and of course Wall Mart is just up the road on SE 14th, with a Menards, Best Buy ect. That alone makes it better than many other parts of town IMO, for Des Moines proper. The area you are talking about is just what I would call OK, not upscale by any means. Most of the homes in that area are in the 70 to 120 K range. The south side has a great variety of houses for any particular neighborhood, you don't see that so much in other parts of town. It's a patchwork of many different housing types in close proximity to each other, any size, all types, brick houses, modern cookie cutter, old 30's and 40's fixer uppers, duplexes, townhouses, everything. The area around Wakonda Golf and points west are solidly more upscale, and the immediate area off Easter Lake Drive is pretty good, Ewing Park has a nice gentle roll to it, some trees and plenty of open space, pleasing to the eye.

The trend up to this past year has been for the area north of Watrous on SE 14th and points east of there off Park Ave and Evergreen.....to generally have more crime than other parts of the South Side. However, this past year has been bad for the SW section, with areas in proximity to SW 9th having more crime this year than normal, with the SE section being more quiet than normal this past year. Bad luck or a trend? Too soon to know for sure, but I think it will settle back to normal this way in 2014. They need to get rid of Ft. Des Moines half jail by the zoo, it does not fit in with the area, and makes things worse. Some advice, it's better to buy a place several blocks away from any big apartment complexes on the South Side, if you can help it, and watch for falling duplexes.