Defining A Region | What exactly is MetroWest?
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Terry Shepherd, managing partner at Shepherd & Goldstein, says MetroWest gets the firm close to the Boston market without forcing it to compete with Boston firms.
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Louis Ciavarra, partner at Bowditch & Dewey, says the firm's Framingham office makes the firm more convenient for clients and its own attorneys.
Caught in the Middle: Because of its diversity, MetroWest is defined differently by different businesses. Some say it's shaped like a diamond, some say it's anything between Boston and Worcester. What is certain is that the once rural bedroom communities are becoming an economic powerhouse.
The collection of towns that comprise the MetroWest area once were viewed as little more than bedroom communities, pleasant little places where people lived, but did not work. Work was always located somewhere else, more than likely a commute east, south or north into the Boston area. Those days are but a distant memory.
MetroWest is an economically diverse home to a number of industries: high tech, biotech, clean energy, manufacturing, financial services. Increasingly, it draws its employees from within its own geographic area, as well as from inside Route 128. It is home to the well-known computer colossus, IBM, which has facilities in both Westford and Littleton, operations that employ 4,000 people. EMC, Sepracor, Bose, BJ's Wholesale Club, Staples, TJX, Cisco, and Genzyme all have operations in MetroWest.
The thing is, MetroWest remains difficult to define. In many ways, it's a region in search of an identity. Business and political leaders say they see that identity emerging.
Leading The State
"I think there has been a growing awareness and acceptance, particularly through the current economic challenge, of MetroWest" as a region, said Paul F. Matthews, executive director of the 495/MetroWest Partnership, a regional nonprofit economic development agency.
"We have seen a real awareness and level of attention to the infrastructure and the policy needs out here," Matthews said. The partnership was set up in 2003 to address infrastructure and policy needs to keep the growing region's economy prospering.
For Matthews, the MetroWest area is shaped like a diamond and runs from Littleton in the north down to Foxborough in the south and extends east to Framingham and Natick and west to Shrewsbury.
Matthews sees MetroWest as one of the economic engines of the commonwealth. It is a position shared by others with roots in the area.
State Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Ashland, moved to Ashland from Cambridge in 1985. Since then, the apple orchards and horse farms have faded away. The town's population has almost doubled to the about 16,000 residents it claims now.
"That's indicative of the entire region. It has doubled in residential population and doubled in the number of businesses," Spilka said. "Someone who had gone out there in the 1970s or early ‘80s would've called it more rural than even suburban."
MetroWest has become "a region unto itself," Spilka said. Still, its diversity may make it difficult for outsiders to decide what that identity is.
"The economy is tremendously diversified," said Matthews. "Talking with my peers across the country, it is quite clear to me just how unusual that is. Most of my counterparts have a regional economy based upon one or two industries."
Earning Its Cred
Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray agreed that diversification is critical, particularly if an area is to weather the ebb and flow of the economy.
"There is a mix," said Murray, rattling off the various industries that have settled in MetroWest. "That makes it less susceptible to the highs and lows. There is a fairly decent infrastructure there as well."
Increasing population and the presence of more businesses also means firms find MetroWest an attractive proposition when it comes time to expand, said Terry Shepherd, managing partner at Shepherd and Goldstein, a Worcester-based accounting firm with offices in Framingham and Milford.
"We had enough business there that it seemed like a natural," Shepherd said. When the firm opened its Framingham office in 1999, it found that "it's close enough that we can offer support (from the Worcester office), and it gets us close enough to the Boston market without having to compete with a lot of Boston companies," Shepherd said.
You might say that Worcester law firm Bowditch & Dewey saw all this coming. It established its Framingham office back in the 1980s when it acquired a 14-attorney firm called Sheridan, Garrahan & Lander. Bowditch's Framingham office has 25 attorneys today.
Louis Ciavarra, a senior partner at the firm, said the Framingham office offers easy access to both clients and attorneys. Over time, the attorneys Bowditch has attracted from Boston have to a great extent traded in the city life for the towns of MetroWest, he said.
"It's a hotbed of activity for start-up tech companies, life sciences companies, companies that are dynamic, and clearly, you want to have access to them," Ciavarra said.
And as it turns out, "Wayland, Sudbury, Southborough are all attractive communities where lawyers want to live," he said.When it comes to stamping MetroWest with a specific identity, Ciavarra said it's best to be general because in addition to MetroWest becoming the state's key region for job growth, employees are more mobile than ever.
"When I first started, Worcester and Boston were very discrete economic areas. They were very different," Ciavarra said.
Now, Ciavarra is comfortable calling anything between the two cities "MetroWest."
"Back then, we probably had more involvement in metro Boston than metro Boston firms had here, but it has become one large, continuous economic zone. It used to be that if your business was located in Worcester, odds were you lived in Worcester and if you lived in Sudbury or Wayland, you probably worked in Boston. Now, we have lawyers who live in South Boston who come to work in Worcester."
That mobility is tempered by a desire on the part of people who have moved to MetroWest for work to set roots in the community.
"It's hard to separate your business life from your social life," Ciavarra said. "Small and mid-sized businesses in MetroWest are owned more by local people, and being involved is very important. It's important for us to meet clients. They serve on boards with us, and those relationships are tied to society and the fabric of the region."
Spilka said social involvement by those who have moved into the region in the last couple of decades has resulted in the high quality of life in many towns. "There are terrific school systems. Families think this is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It's close enough to Boston that you can easily get in, yet it's a beautiful area."
Smarty Pants
Let's not forget, though, that several towns in MetroWest were historically centers of heavy industry.
Brendan Carroll, vice president of research for Boston-based commercial real estate broker Richards Barry Joyce & Partners, LLC, said MetroWest has always had both success and respect with regard to its business history.
"From our company's perspective, the MetroWest area has a deep, rich, established and respected history of business going back all the way to the textile era," said Carroll. Today, the area is home to six of the state's 12 Fortune 500 companies.
In times gone by, the region's mills used to locate near a water source, which was a means of producing power. Today, businesses tend to locate where there is a population of well-educated workers from which to draw.
"Highly skilled workers are the new source for power," said Matthews.
And the region consistently outperforms other areas of the commonwealth in job creation, said Matthews. Its share of state employment currently represents one out of every 11 jobs in the state, according to the MetroWest Economic Research Center.
In addition to the diversification of the economy, MetroWest is home to a lot of folks with college, graduate and professional degrees. The level of education of MetroWest employees sets them apart from other areas of the country.
"We are a source of highly skilled workers," said Matthews. "The educational attainment levels are huge. Nearly 50 percent have college degrees and nearly 20 percent have graduate degrees or professional equivalents." Those numbers "blow away" his counterparts in the South and the Midwest, where college degrees or beyond are not found in similar numbers.
Road Warriors
Despite the economic growth the MetroWest region has enjoyed, there are impediments to its continued growth.
Continued attention must be paid to the infrastructure, said Murray, particularly transportation infrastructure that is old or badly in need of repair and modernization. Murray, who has long been a proponent of expanded commuter rail service, believes that "you have to have robust transportation options" to attract people to live and work in a region.
"It is a competitive advantage," he said. "There is an opportunity for growth and expansion in that area," if transportation problems can be addressed.
"The latest round of stimulus funding went to wastewater treatment needs," said Matthews. "That doesn't get the public's attention, but it is fundamental to keeping the economy growing out here."
But Spilka would argue that projects like wastewater treatment upgrades and sewer line installations do get residents' attention because they form the basis for town identity.
"One of the first big Ashland meetings I went to, I wasn't super involved yet, was about putting a sewer line down Route 126. A lot of people said no, and this is when the state was paying for 90 percent of it, but people wanted to keep Ashland quaint, and it ended up hanging up business and growth outpaced resources."
Today, by-and-large, the towns of MetroWest have come to grips with a collective identity of a comfortable and growing residential region that nevertheless welcomes diverse commercial expansion.The difference is that towns have learned to manage the growth rather than simply oppose or ignore it.
"Towns are smarter now," Spilka said. "They're planning for growth. People have an idea of how a town is supposed to be, and it's hard for people to make changes. It takes a little bit of time."
Ellen O’Connor is a freelance writer. She can be reached at eokie@charter.net.
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