"We feel that a lot of the interest is going to come from Rhode Island tenants," says Grossman broker Aiden Murray, whose firm plans to convert a defunct Seekonk mall into a state-of-the-art office development. "There's absolutely no space there, especially large contiguous blocks, so I think they will have to consider us as an option."

If Grossman is successful, it would be a measure of revenge for Massachusetts, which has seen Rhode Island economic officials aggressively lobby Massachusetts firms in recent years. Besides luring Fidelity Investments with a sizeable tax break to a site in Smithfield, the state even recently established a Web site known as mass-exodus.com that touts the benefits of doing business across the border.

Murray says he believes the Seekonk property would serve well as an office building, especially because a fiber-optic backbone runs alongside the parcel. Featuring 18-foot ceilings and a flexible layout, the single-story building could function as a data center or perhaps as back-office space for the medical or insurance industries. Per sf rents are projected in the low teens.