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The Minnesota Army National Guard will break ground Thursday on some new digs in Arden Hills.

The $15 million Arden Hills Readiness Center will house the Guard's 147th Human Resources Company, now based in Roseville, and the 1135th Forward Support Company, now being created to provide vehicle maintenance. In all, about 240 soldiers will call the building their home base.

The 61,000-square-foot building will be built in the southern portion of the Arden Hills Army Training Site (AHATS), part of the former Twin Cities Army and Ammunition Plant site. The building is scheduled for completion in September 2011.

The AHATS site currently is being used by the Guard to conduct land navigation, driver's training, small unit tactics and headquarters training. This will be the first new building on the AHATS site in nearly 60 years.

In addition, the building will be a gathering point for more than 200 soldiers on weekend duty; they can drill there or rendezvous en route to Camp Ripley, near Little Falls, Minn.

The building will be constructed to LEED Silver classification, meaning it must meet prescribed standards for energy and water efficiency, carbon dioxide emissions, indoor health quality, and minimal outdoor environmental impact.

"The National Guard has been interested for many years in green projects, so we make an attempt in all new construction to meet those standards where we can," said Guard spokesman Capt. Randy Belden. "It's an attempt to be a good neighbor to the community, as well."

The Readiness Center is a Department of Defense project and has been under discussion for about a decade. Congress approved the funding last year, Belden said.

There are other plans -- as yet unfunded -- for the 1,500-acre AHATS site, including a field maintenance shop and a new facilities for the 34th Red Bull Infantry Division and the Minnesota National Guard Joint Force Headquarters. The Red Bulls currently are based in Rosemount and Inver Grove Heights; the Joint Force Headquarters is near the State Capitol in St. Paul.

Arden Hills Mayor Stan Harpstead said he's thrilled to see the improvements on the site, as well as the 1,300 acres of space left open for wildlife and greenery. The U.S. Army has owned the land since 1942.

The new development will bring people and their dollars to his community, but that's not the point, Harpstead said.

"Any time you have people in your neighborhood, it's beneficial," he said. "I don't look at it that way. The value here is to take something that had been unused and in decline, and to take the natural area back to its pristine, natural condition, and take the older buildings and put them into new use, and continue the Guard use in the area. ... At the same time we'll have them doing what they have to do, being one of America's defense mechanisms."

Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409