With similar projects driving commercial activity to the north and west of Boston, Conroy is proposing what it considers the first telecommunications data center in the South market. The 200,000-sf, two-story building would help telecom providers service the financial, high-tech and insurance industries that have come to dominate this 9.7 million-sf office market.

"Nobody has tapped into the South yet," says broker Christopher P. Tosti of CB Richard Ellis/Whittier Partners. "Somebody is going to put something there, and we are happy to be the first ones in."

CB/Whittier is marketing the space on behalf of Conroy, but Tosti he believes the developers will build on a speculative basis, if necessary. If permitting goes smoothly, he says the building could be completed by the end of 2001.