Markley Data Center, Boston, Massachusetts

Markley Group's data center at One Summer Street in Boston's Downtown Crossing, in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, is a 920,000 square foot carrier hotel above a Macy's with a total capacity of 30 megawatts. Markley calls it New England's primary telecommunications facility and only carrier hotel, home to more than 90 carriers and network providers.

Markley describes itself as New England's largest multi-tenant data center and carrier hotel, with a second site in Lowell that is linked to One Summer by three dark fiber routes. The Boston building has been the subject of a lease fight with one of its tenants. In April 2023 zColo, owned by DataBank, sued Markley, claiming a "years-long harassing letter-writing campaign" and an invoice for $70 million on a lease whose monthly payments had been set at $63,708. zColo leases about 0.5 megawatts and 8,090 square feet of raised floor in the building, a lease originally signed by its former parent, Zayo, in 2014. Markley said it "strenuously denies all allegations in that complaint." In August 2023 it countersued Zayo for $80 million, arguing the lease could not be transferred and asking that Zayo vacate.

Markley's expansion at its other data center, a 352,000 square foot building in a dense residential area of Lowell, has drawn a resident lawsuit. On Aug. 10, 2026 Superior Court Judge C. William Barrett halted the installation of four new diesel generators there while residents challenge the state's air permits, arguing regulators did not properly weigh the pollution's effects on an environmental justice community. "This ruling is a win for the entire community", said Jake Fortes, a third-generation Lowell resident whose home directly abuts the data center. Markley chief executive Jeff Markley said the decision was "based on a limited set of facts and arguments" and that the company would prevail.

The Lowell case now sits with the Massachusetts Superior Court, where Conservation Law Foundation, Yale Law School's Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic and Fitch Law Partners represent the residents against Markley and the state Department of Environmental Protection.