Jonathan Stone strolls smartly into Providence Station with five minutes to spare, after an eight-minute walk in the dark from his East Side home. A half-dozen people are waiting ahead of him in Cafe La France at 6:30 a.m., but Stone’s not fretting. As a 14-year veteran commuter, he knows there’s time to grab his usual small coffee and pastry and take his regular seat at the front of the train.
Like countless other Rhode Islanders who work in and around Boston, the 47-year-old hedge-fund manager has learned to live by the schedule of the trains.
They do so because they don’t want - or in a rising real estate market can’t afford - to live closer to work. Until recently these soldiers of the rails and highways were a faceless crowd, often rising before the sun to catch a train or beat the morning traffic.
But Rhode Island’s relative affordability compared to Greater Boston is swelling their ranks and leading some developers to cater to them. Rising real estate prices are also making it easier for long-time commuters like Stone to make the daily sacrifices to have both the job and the home they want.
“I’m a total creature of habit,” Stonesays while walking briskly into one of the first cars on the commuter train (a preference he says will help him get about a minute jump on the crowd when it’s time to exit at Boston’s Back Bay station).
He slides behind one of two tables in the middle of the car. After a quick breakfast, including a yogurt he’d packed in his briefcase, he begins work at an hour when most of his neighbors are just beginning to wake.
First he catches up on business news, and then scours company reports, as the seats around him fill quietly.
Conductor Steve Matthews later estimates about 215 people were on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) train when it pulled out of Providence. Six years ago, when Matthews first started on the Providence-to-Boston run, there “might have been 15 people” leaving from Providence that early in the morning, he says.
Now people come from Westerly and beyond, according to the veteran conductor.
“With the downsizing of a lot of companies, people are driving much farther” to catch a train to work, Matthews theorizes.
In 1999, the number of people who boarded MBTA trains in Providence averaged 778 per day. Two nearby stations, in Attleboro and South Attleboro, each averaged more than 1,500 that year, according to the MBTA.
In May 2005, the average number of daily riders boarding in Providence was 1,108. In Attleboro and South Attleboro, the average daily numbers were up to 1,856 and 1,696, respectively.
The increase in MBTA riders is one indication Rhode Islanders are increasingly joining the commuter ranks.
Rhode Island’s relatively limited white-collar job market has long led some workers to commute.
“There’s virtually no (financial services) industry in Providence,” said Stone, who spends up to two hours each work day commuting.
Others commute because they simply can’t afford to buy their own home in Massachusetts, where real estate prices have skyrocketed in recent years. First-time buyers, in particular, are finding it can make financial sense to settle in Rhode Island and commute across the border.
The median price of a single-family house in Rhode Island in September rose about 5 percent, to $298,500, compared to the same month last year. In Massachusetts, the increase was 4 percent, to $360,000. The sales are tracked by real estate associations in both states.
The gap in housing prices made the choice between the two states relatively easy for Jacqueline Brooks, a Harvard University research scientist. She and her husband bought a house 111/2 years ago on Providence’s East Side.
“I wanted to plant a garden and put paint on a house” and “prices are much better in Rhode Island,” said Brooks, a Brown University graduate.
But living in Providence means a 1-hour-and-40-minute commute each way for Brooks.
She takes commuter trains in part because Harvard covers some of the cost. There’s also limited parking near her office, not to mention rush-hour traffic to avoid.
“I’ve survived longer than most people commuting,” she said. “My hands are free. I knit or do whatever I want” on the train. She dislikes spending so much of her day commuting, but the benefits so far have been worth it.
“I have a great job . . . (and) there’s no way I’m going to move” nearer to her job, she said.
Commuting is also more palatable if you’re profiting, on paper at least, from the ever-rising real estate prices.
“We probably made $30,000 sitting on our house the first year,” she said.
Brooks was already renting in Rhode Island before she bought a house. Others have made the leap across the border to live here, without giving up their jobs in Massachusetts.
“People in Greater Boston have identified Rhode Island as a comparable bargain compared to prices in Massachusetts,” said Michael Young, president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors.
“We saw it more with investors from Boston in late 1980s,” he said. Young first noticed Bay State residents relocating to Rhode Island about seven years ago. It’s a trend he expects to continue, as long as it remains cheaper to live in the Ocean State.
Condominium developers appear to be banking on a rising market for Rhode Island housing.
Statewide, condominium sales increased 34 percent between 2004 and 2005.
Some developments are marketing directly to Massachusetts workers who might be willing to relocate across the state border.
“Tough enough to work downtown, yet smart enough to live in Bernon Mills Estates,” is the slogan for a luxury Woonsocket condominium project now under construction on Front Street. The downtown referred to is Boston.
“You get out of (Boston), have places to park and all the amenities of a gated community in nice little city, and price-wise, you can’t beat it,” Bernon Mills developer Steven Lima said.
The project’s first phase, sixteen units selling for between $225,000 and $345,000, is expected to be completed next spring. It offers roomy lofts and a waterfront view of the Blackstone River, a fitness center, conference space and other amenities.
Lima says similar condo units in the Boston area might sell for three times what Bernon Mills is charging.
So far only a couple of units have been reserved, by people now working in Massachusetts.
Woonsocket’s 252-unit River Haven Condominiums development opened a year ago and is more than 90 percent owner-occupied, says Tina Plante, who leads the Coldwell Banker sales team marketing the development. About 40 percent of the Mill Street units, which sell for between $132,500 and $174,900, are owned by buyers who came from out of state.
“We did get more (interest) than what we expected from Massachusetts,” Plante said. “People would come, they’d tell their friends and we’d get two or three more people.”
Affordability was the main issue for many of the buyers, she said.
“You can’t find new construction anywhere that you can call your own for under $150,000,” she said.
Olneymar Castro bought one of the River Haven units last year for $150,000. The two-bedroom unit has more than 900 square feet and a garage.
“I was looking for something to buy in Massachusetts, but it is very expensive,” the 31-year-old native of Brazil said.
He’d never been to Woonsocket but checked out River Haven on the advice of a friend and quickly bought one of the new units. Despite an extra 15 minutes of driving time to and from the Dunkin’ Donuts he manages in Upton, Mass., he’s thrilled with the purchase.
“I used to share a one-bedroom apartment,” he said. “Now I pay more (each month), but it is mine.”
Providence condo developments are also luring Boston-area workers.
“It’s definitely something we’ve noticed,” said Ari Heckman, of Cornish Associates. Cornish is the developer of the renovated Peerless Building, a former downtown department store that reopened this year as 97 loft apartments.
Heckman, an associate with the developer, said about 60 of the lofts are leased. He estimated that more than 30 percent of the residents moved from Massachusetts or New York for luxury units that rent for up to $3,300 a month.
“In the new economy (many) people don’t need location, they can live where they want,” he said. That makes price a key factor for those buyers and renters and gives Providence an edge over other urban areas, like Boston
“The way we see it, you are getting urban amenities (at the Peerless) that in Boston would cost twice as much,” Heckman said.
Stone is among those commuters who could afford to live closer to work, in Massachusetts, but chooses not to, having set roots in his East Side neighborhood.
He bought his Victorian home in 1997 for $600,000, fearing “I was buying at the top” of the market, he said with a smile. He estimates the house would now easily sell for $1 million, but he has no interest in moving.
“I like old buildings, there’s a 100-year-old maple tree in the front yard,” said the divorced father of two. He rents the third floor of his home and hosts his children on weekends and during the summer.
He also likes the compactness of Providence, its proximity to the ocean, and theater and restaurant offerings he says are as good as can be found in Boston.
For all that, the Brown University graduate gladly rises early to ride the rails to work.
He spends about $250 a month commuting, but considers it a bargain compared to the cost to park in Boston and the emotional toll driving would exact.
“There’s no way I’d do it if I had to drive, it’d be too stressful,” he said.
The trains, by contrast, are waiting for him each morning and always leave on time. They also give him a sometimes welcome excuse to avoid staying too late at the office.
“If I am on the phone at 5:35 p.m., I hang up on them, ‘I’ve got to catch the train, got to go!’” he said with a laugh, before heading toward the doors ahead of the crowd, as his train rolled into Boston’s Back Bay station.
mmello@projo.com / (401) 277-7355
