BRUNSWICK – The home on a small street in the Woodland Village subdivision looks ordinary: It’s a townhouse on a small cul-de-sac with freshly planted trees and a grassy field in the distance.

But the modern home and suburban environment represent something extraordinary to Petty Officer 2nd Class Mary Mohammed.

“I love this place,” she exclaimed while showing visitors around her three-bedroom townhouse at Brunswick Naval Air Station. “This is one reason I’m still in the Navy.”

Her new home is part of a 72-unit, $8.7 million project that is the first in a three-phase program that eventually will replace 1950s-era housing with 300 new housing units on the base.

The complex consists of three- and four-bedroom units for sailors and their families. Each unit has a kitchen, dining room, laundry room, patio, 21/2 bathrooms, closets, radiant floor heat and attached garage.

The first tenants began moving in last August.

Mohammed, a single mother of two who works in the personnel department, has been in the Navy for eight years, having re-enlisted last fall. She plans to make a career of it.

“This place was certainly a deciding factor in my decision in October,” Mohammed said.

With no planes coming in or taking off, and no busy roads nearby, it’s sometimes easy to forget you are on a military base that is on a heightened security alert.

Mohammed said she feels safe letting her children – 3-year-old Ayshia and 5-year-old Jonathan – play outside.

“We’re on base, we’re in this nice house, there’s a nice back yard that’s fenced in, I feel quite safe,” she said.

That feeling of safety and security is just what the Navy has been striving for, said Capt. Keith F. Koon, commanding officer of the base.

“Living conditions and recreation are important facets of the Navy retaining our best and brightest,” Koon said.

Koon said the problem in the Bath-Brunswick area is compounded by the shortage of affordable housing for the 2,850 people stationed there.

If Mohammed didn’t live in base housing she would have a difficult time finding a three-bedroom apartment, with appliances and utilities, in the area for the $675 housing allowance the Navy provides for sailors of her grade and length of service.

Mohammed’s previous home was in Brunswick Gardens, near Cook’s Corner. She said it was much more typical of the older housing available to Navy families.

“There was no room there,” Mohammed said. “The hot water heater was in the dining room. There were too few closets.”