Cherry Hills captures America’s No. 1 suburb title

Cherry Hills Village central location snags top U.S. Suburb designation. Photo courtesy of Tom White

By Jan Wondra

A survey announced Sept. 25 by The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch, has named Cherry Hills Village as the No. 1 suburb in America to live. The survey, released by Coldwell Banker Real Estate, reveals its top 10 suburban picks for best places to live in America.  It beat out such leafy enclaves as Clyde Hill, Wash., (near Bellevue, Wash., home of Eddie Bauer and Expedia), Wolf Trap, Va., (commuter area to Washington, D.C.), Englewood Cliffs, N.J., (only nine miles from  Manhattan’s George Washington bridge) and Indian Hills, Ky.

In placing Cherry Hills Village at the top of the list, Coldwell Banker used information from Onboard Informatics, a provider of real-estate data. Cherry Hills scored a perfect 1,000 grade. Its top attributes include access to amenities such as grocery stores and banks, its proximity to good schools, ease of commuting by car and community safety.

Mayor Doug Tisdale said, “I am pleased and honored that our unique community has been recognized as the No. 1 best suburb of the United States in which to live. Credit for this great accolade goes to our visionary elected and appointed officials, our dedicated and hard-working staff, our caring and concerned citizens, and to our neighboring communities that provide many of the amenities that gave us a perfect score of 1,000.”

Cherry Hills Village, where the median sales price of homes is $1.04 million and home ownership is nearly 100 percent, is in good company on the top 10 list. Average home prices on the list ranged from more than $1 million for a Cherry Hills Village abode, to $725,000 for Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J., and a modest $75,024 in East Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Cherry Hill Village is centrally located. It’s about a 20-minute commute to the downtown area and a 10-minute commute to the Tech Center and Cherry Creek,” Debbie Tilton, broker associate with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, said. “Many commuters are even able to avoid using the highway to get to work and several nearby light rail stations make for easy use of public transportation.”

Tisdale said, “This is not a story about living in a beautiful house. Many communities around the country enjoy large beautiful homes. This is a story about having a sense of place, about living in a community that enjoys the benefits of being a part of a great region, about having a remarkable vision of a fulfilling life in a place blessed with natural beauty.

“The Denver Post always used to say, ‘’Tis a privilege to live in Colorado.’ We here in Cherry Hills believe that the greatest privilege is to live in our Village.”

For the full suburban top 10 list, visit http://fyre.it/1rPC.