BANGOR – The Maine Army National Guard has chosen the city as the site for a new $28 million regional training institute that is envisioned as a military version of a traditional college campus.

The institute, an upgraded and expanded version of training facilities now housed at Camp Keyes in Augusta, will be on federal land adjacent to the Armed Forces Reserve Center, with access off Outer Hammond Street.

Imagined as a self-contained campus much like Colby College or Bates College, the institute will include classrooms, a student dormitory, cafeteria, athletic facilities and an outdoor running track, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Morton, programming and planning manager for the Guard, told a workshop of city officials Monday.

“It is really going to be cutting-edge for the Army Guard for the next two decades,” Morton said.

The Guard hopes to begin construction of the federally funded institute in 2008 and complete the project within two years, he said. Funding for the project is already in place.

Members of the 240th Training Regiment will staff the facility, which will be one of several in New England that work collaboratively, each focusing on specialized training disciplines, Morton said.

Bangor’s planned facility will shift away from artillery training toward instruction in engineering, using high-tech digital classrooms, and simulation training that teaches soldiers how to react in high-risk scenarios, he said.

“It will be the latest and greatest,” Morton said.

Besides having many of the components of a traditional college campus – in addition to the simulated shooting exercises – the institute also will look like one, Morton said. Construction will emphasize brick facades and traditional door and window treatments, and will live up to the military’s requirements for environmentally sensitive design, Morton said.

Employing up to four full-time and 23 traditional Guard soldiers, the institute will bring to the area an annual payroll of more than $500,000, Morton said. Add to that the salaries of up to 100 Guard and Reserve students, and the Guard facility will attract $1 million in additional salaries, he said.

Annual utilities are estimated to exceed $300,000, Morton said.

Because most of the students will be traditional reservists, the residential load will fall primarily on the weekends, Morton said. The facility will be accessible to the Air National Guard and local law enforcement agencies that want to train on the simulated shooting programs, he said.

The Guard’s healthy working relationship with the city was one of several factors that led Maj. Gen. John Libby, adjutant general of the Maine Army National Guard, to choose Bangor as the institute’s home, Morton said.

The city’s historical support of the Army Guard and the institute’s proximity to Bangor International Airport and existing Army Guard facilities and troops made the city a natural fit, he said.

Mayor Frank Farrington pointed to the Maine Troop Greeters, residents who meet military flights passing through BIA, as an example of the city’s support for the military.

Though most of the institute’s students will come from Maine, the training facility could attract soldiers from throughout New England and beyond, Morton said.

“You could have students from all over the United States,” he said.