BANGOR – Picture this: a grassy courtyard studded with trees and walking paths, filled with people playing with flying discs, relaxing at picnic tables or heading toward one of the neat, brick buildings surrounding the quadrant.

That’s the vision that Eastern Maine Community College officials presented Thursday during a groundbreaking for a 165-person residence hall.

“We’re taking steps to further transform the college,” President Joyce Hedlund said.

The idea is to provide students with a “full college experience,” she said, noting that the demand for housing is increasing as the school attracts more new high school graduates.

Some 75 people attended the morning event, including administrators, faculty, staff and students; members of the EMCC Advisory Council; area legislators; and community members.

Scheduled to open in August 2007, the $5.3 million dorm will end the school’s three-year housing crunch spurred by its shift to community college status in 2003. Currently, 125 EMCC students are living in area motels.

“It will be really exciting to have them back on site,” said Dan Belyea, director of facilities management, adding that the students will more easily be able to take advantage of the gym, bookstore and library.

Constructed of red brick with metal detailing, the four-story building will be located about two-thirds of the way down the parking lot and will match Maine Hall as well as the newly renovated Katahdin Hall which houses the Campus Center.

Funded through revenue from room and board costs, the dorm will feature a suite-type arrangement with a shared bath between two rooms. Each room will house two students. Also included in the building will be classroom space, a large meeting room and a computer lab.

Over the next few years, the college plans to build the courtyard as well as a 450-space parking lot in front of Penobscot Hall and a new entrance off Hogan Road which will redirect traffic along the outer edges of the campus.

The goal is to have EMCC “feel more like a typical college campus and less like a commuter campus,” said Richard Graves of WBRC Architects/Engineers in Bangor.

Contractor for the new residence hall is Pizzagalli Construction Co. in South Portland. It also is building residence halls at Central Maine Community College in Auburn and Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. With one contractor for all three projects, the Maine Community College System was able to save money on the price of materials and speed the building process.

More than 30 people on the three projects’ design and construction teams graduated from the community college system, officials pointed out.

EMCC plays an important role in helping people gain access to higher education and find career opportunities so they can stay in Maine and raise their families, said Michael Crowley, chairman of the EMCC Advisory Council.

“It doesn’t seem possible” that the college began in the basement of the former Bangor High School on Harlow Street, he said.

“The campus is transforming itself. This is definitely the beginning.”

Watching as officials picked up shovels and dug into the earth as part of the groundbreaking ceremony, Loring Kydd, a math instructor at EMCC for 37 years who recently retired, said the college is moving in the right direction.

“EMCC is finally getting the recognition it deserves,” he said.