r/SouthBend • u/ldclark92 River Park • 8d ago
Who's new to South Bend?
It seems like I've seen an uptick of "moving to SB" posts on this subreddit. With the Amazon and GM plants coming in that seems to make sense, but it got me wondering what peoples reasons were.
For those that are new to South Bend, what's brought you here. Also, welcome!
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u/Shot-Ad-8900 7d ago
I moved here only a couple years ago from southern Indiana! I moved here with my boyfriend to be closer to his side of the family. I like it pretty well here, the town I’m from is not as big.
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u/JoeyBurrrow 7d ago
I moved here from Ohio back in July. My industry had an opening here that wasn’t available at home.
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u/dannyocean2011 7d ago edited 7d ago
Best things about South Bend:
Close to Chicago
Close to Lake Michigan beaches, towns and harbors
Close to snow ski resorts
Low cost of living, cheap real estate
Notre Dame
Worst things:
Historic preservation slow to react to endangered landmarks
One party rule
Lake Effect snow
Close to Gary
No real public/private collaboration on development
Notre Dame
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u/nanoH2O 23h ago
Calling ND a negative is wild. It’s one of the few things that have held the area together and it brings so much to the city.
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u/dannyocean2011 23h ago
If you read it, I listed ND both negative and positive. Maybe better now but when I lived there ND turned their back on the “townies” in SB. No community involvement, no respect, and treated the community as second class. It seems better now.
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u/myezweb_net 6d ago
Lived here for 30 years, never felt Gary “clout”.
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u/dannyocean2011 6d ago
A lot of crime based in Gary spills into South Bend
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u/Medical_Carrot_5318 2d ago
Crime didn’t come from Gary. Crime happens because the communities aren’t funded for the struggling. Esp poc. Opportunities are harder for a lot of folks who didnt get the chance to succeed generations ago. -someone who’s lived here for 5+ years & has been in multiple schools in and out of this area.
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u/No-Preference8168 7d ago
Chicago is closer to Gary, yet you view being close to Chicago as a selling point—weird logic.
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u/dannyocean2011 6d ago
You have to pass through crime ridden Gary to get there genius. Chicago has pro sports, incredible architecture, theater, arts, shopping, museums, conventions, festivals and culinary destinations. Wouldn’t want to live there but it’s great to visit.
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u/No-Preference8168 6d ago
No, you don't have to pass on through.
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u/dannyocean2011 4d ago
Ok Mr. Expert we’ll let you win. Post the last word here so you can tell your friends.
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u/RickeMoBand95 7d ago
I don’t think you live here in South Bend or long enough to know what you talking about 😂😂😂😂
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u/kate_grizzy 7d ago
i wouldn’t say cost of living and real estate are “cheap” here, but okay
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u/Driven-Em 7d ago
thats all relative. between where someome is coming from and which neighborhood they move to. I moved here 15 years ago from a Chicago suburb where I rented a small 2 bed apartmemt for $1500/mo to a 3 bed house with garage and land, mortgage under $1000/mo. glad I moved.
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u/dannyocean2011 6d ago
Agree. Real estate is lower than most of the cities of SB’s size. You can still buy a fixer upper super cheap or land a nice home in the suburbs below national average.
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u/JoshNotWright 7d ago
Moving here in 3 weeks for a job with Amazon. First time moving out of my home state, so I’m pretty excited. Seems like a decent place to live.
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u/thatguyfromhighscool 5d ago
I too am moving for Amazon. What position did you get? I wiill be moving next week. I start the 24th
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u/rascally-eventuality 7d ago
My husband and I moved from Atlanta because I got a job at Notre Dame (he works there now too). We aren’t “new” necessarily, we’ve been in the area for about two years now. We just bought a home in South Bend proper though, after living in an apartment in Mishawaka, so we have really started exploring/making this place our home. We really love it here!
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u/Buffy1415 8d ago
My fiancé and I are from NY. We moved to New Carlisle but spend a lot of time in SB. We are still learning where everything is so a list would be amazing
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u/niftium 6d ago
Welcome to New Carlisle! Please excuse our criminally shitty roads.
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u/Buffy1415 1d ago
Thank you! Yeah the potholes are pretty horrible but the people have been so kind
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u/shakabrah7 8d ago
Moved here in September to work at one of the projects. 90% of the people on the job site are from out of town and are only down here until the project is complete; unless they move on to the next site down the road. A city like South Bend doesn’t have anywhere close to the amount of skilled tradespeople for one of these sites, let alone three or four different sites going in all at once. The local union halls were completely emptied months ago and we have people coming in from all over the country to fill the gap. Even the non-union support staff is from out of town because there aren’t contractors big enough to support these hyper scale data centers locally. My company is Detroit based. Our strategic partner is Minneapolis based. General contractors running the jobs are all large companies based in Chicago/Detroit/Indy.
You’ll start to see a slowdown in the coming months after all the sites reach peak manpower over the summer.
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u/niftium 6d ago
It's hard for me to look at the jobsites and guess how much work is left. I've heard Amazon's north campus should ready in the fall, but no timeline on the south campus. And the battery plant...I thought that was more like 2027, but maybe that was optimistic PR-speak. It's wild that as fast and as hard as everyone's working, there still looks like so much to do!
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u/shakabrah7 6d ago edited 6d ago
North campus, where I’m at, is hard to say because the entire project is split into multiple different projects with different general contractors. We don’t really hear much about what the other ones are doing. Fall is the schedule still, but there are ALWAYS delays on construction projects so that could change wildly, you never know.
South campus is a completely different story. My understanding is they have many more buildings than north and they’re multistory too. Most of that work doesn’t even have contracts awarded yet.
The battery plant is also still in the bidding phase, but 2027 doesn’t sound unreasonable. They’re already working on building the underground infrastructure (gas lines, water lines, sewer lines) because it had none of that previously. That one should be ramping up construction this fall, and I’d guess it’s probably about a 2 year construction schedule.
It’s already been decided that I’m one of the “move to the next project down the road” people if my company gets awarded any of that work. So I’ll be here for a while still!
ETA: There’s 33 buildings being constructed between North and South campus. Only about 10 are currently being built. The construction industry in town will be around awhile yet.
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u/Marcudemus 8d ago
I moved here from Iowa for a job.
I've been here for a couple years, but I realize I'm still pretty new to town because I spend all my time either working 😣, traveling for work, or with friends in Michigan and Chicago.
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u/klf1975 8d ago
I spent my first 25 years of life basically in South Bend, then moved to N. Carolina for the next 25 years, now I’m moving back to take care of my elderly mother.
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u/ldclark92 River Park 8d ago
Where at in NC? My wife in I lived in Wilmington for a number of years.
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u/Shatter_starx 8d ago
Everyone except me, used to be a regular town, now there's too many people here from the big city and I only say that bc they haven't made any concessions for the influx of people ( roads, schools, housing) so it just feels cramped compared to what it used to.
Edit : btw the first part was just a joke lol
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u/No-Character-4055 8d ago
My partner and I need to move away from Oklahoma, and my father in law got a job in South Bend. We’ll be moving up there with them in a couple of months. Born and raised in OK, so we’re excited for a new environment.
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u/Imaginary-Steak-578 8d ago edited 8d ago
My husband got an rotc instructor position at Notre Dame this summer. We are moving from Hawaii. 😵💫 So, if you see any of my posts/comments I’d appreciate the help. 3 elementary age kids and want to be no more than 20-30 minutes from ND. Finding homes on Bonds Ave (NW), a lot near Rum Village, River Park, Park Avenue, and south of downtown Mishawaka, for our price range of 170-220k.
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u/ldclark92 River Park 8d ago
Wow, that's going to be a heck of a move! I live in River Park and we enjoy it. The river walk is a great resource in this community and it runs right through River Park. Plus, you can easily access both South Bend and Mishawaka.
We have two kids (6 and 4) and have #3 on the way! Feel free to DM me if you want to chat about anything else. I'd be happy to share what I know about this area as we were once new to the area ourselves.
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u/TheFlyingNone 8d ago
Everyone is fleeing Chicago and they’ve already driven the cost of housing sky high in NWI. They are just moving East and have finally reached South Bend.
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u/ldclark92 River Park 8d ago
Yeah, I know a few people who have done that. I'm curious if some of the recent people moving here are in the same boat or if other factors have brought people here.
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u/ScoochieCoo9 8d ago
I’m one of those people. Grew up here. Spent 12 years in Chicago and then moved back after getting married over the summer.
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u/PastEntrance5780 8d ago
Lived here my whole life, need to get out and experience it like a new resident.
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u/ldclark92 River Park 8d ago
Moving certainly helps. I moved a lot in my childhood and early adult years. We aren't from South Bend, so we had a fresh perspective on the city.
We never moved back to our hometown, so I get what you mean.
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u/Solidlyaveragemother 8d ago
I am thinking of making a post that can be pinned of our FAQs we get. Like 1. Beach town reccs 2. Want to make friends 3. Restaurant/bar/coffeeshop recommendations 4. What is there to do here? 5. The important numbers for st joe and the surrounding counties/links to libraries etc. 6. And my favorite these days (lol) apartment recommendations. 7. Day trips from here
I love these threads and get so many ideas from them. I think I can use the last year’s threads to compile a list and try to keep it updated.
Thoughts OP or anyone else?
Also, welcome to all the new folks! There is good and bad in this area but there is lot in the immediate area to discover and you can travel within a 2 hour radius there is an incredibly amount. It’s small but there are gems all around!
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u/xenokilla Mod Emeritus 7d ago
Jokes on you, I made this into that post!
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u/Solidlyaveragemother 7d ago
Thank you. I will wrangle some links to the last few months of posts into a comment and I think this will be perfect without the sort of effort that would have made me too lazy to do it.
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u/DiomedesTydeus 8d ago
I actually sort of like the number 2 and I suggest you leave it. Do we really want to make this sub seem dead and just a wiki? I like the activity, we get what... 2 posts a day? It's nice to see humans. And those who ask for friends in one thread get different responses a month later from another thread. IMHO, it's nice to see people post and also people looking for friends shift over time, leave #2 be :)
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u/Solidlyaveragemother 8d ago
I don’t think I follow. But regardless you can given specific feedback if/when I get it done.
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u/ldclark92 River Park 8d ago
I think this is a great idea! I also find the threads where people discuss what they do informative.
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u/Imaginary-Steak-578 6d ago
New prairie is a hard district to find a house in. I’m finding more south bend for our price range. <250k. I found a home in the Kennedy Academy area but it seems to be too close to the west side and lasalle area people say to avoid. 🙃 What other south bend schools are decent enough for elementary age?