Hawai'i Marines have begun building a $3.5 million "city" that will be used for urban warfare training at Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo.

The city, consisting of 85 buildings and four villages made out of about 145 shipping containers of varying sizes, will be used to give Marines, sailors and domestic security agencies a first-hand, local training experience in what has increasingly become the front lines of modern warfare: densely populated urban areas where combatants, terrorists and civilians live and fight side by side.

"The need to conduct (urban) training has exceeded what is available O'ahu-wide," said Dan Geltmacher, range manager for Marine Corps Base-Hawai'i. "We need this training system to give our Marines realistic training to prepare for future operations."

The training area, on a 10-acre site at Bellows, is a scaled-down version of what was originally envisioned as a $35 million facility in Hawai'i. Officials, who confirmed the plans last week, said they hope to expand the project later to a full-sized facility that will reduce the need for Island-based Marines heading for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan or other conflict zones to have to train elsewhere.

The Bellows training facility is one of dozens of similar ones that military officials are rushing to build around the world in response to mission changes that have been occurring since the end of the Cold War, said John Pike, director of the military think tank Global Security in Alexandria, Va.

"They are going up all over the place, too many to keep track of," Pike said. "They are a high priority and eventually just about ever major military installation will have one." Similar facilities for military operations in urban terrain already exist at Schofield Barracks and Ford Island.

At Bellows, the containers, ranging in size from 10 feet to 40 feet in length, will be modular and mobile so that they can form different building configurations, including single- or multiple-story buildings.

They will be put on old runways or existing aircraft revetments, said Lt. Binford Strickland, a spokesman for Marine Corps Base-Hawai'i.

Building the mock "city" on existing paved areas in an existing training area will reduce the environmental impact, he said. The new "city" will not include any new power, plumbing or sewer systems and will not use live-fire training operations.

The Marines had first announced plans for the training facility in 2003 when they envisioned a much larger facility. The new plan reflects a more austere funding climate. Officials still plan to build a larger, $10 million Military Operations in Urban Terrain facility as more funds become available.

"Although not what we ultimately want, it will enhance our opportunity to conduct urban training," Strickland said of the facility now under construction.

Pike said money for such training facilities is in demand.

"There's never enough money for everything, is there?" Pike said "But the fact that something is getting built shows that it's still a high priority."

Of the 26 conflicts fought by U.S. military over the past two decades, 21 have involved some urban areas and 10 have been fought exclusively in urban settings and the trend is likely to continue, military analysts said.

"Since the end of the Cold War, we've learned that no matter what kind of military unit you are, it doesn't matter how much good equipment or other stuff you have. The odds are pretty good that you are going to end up fighting in close quarters in a city street where there are civilians around. "

Strickland said the new Bellows site will be a joint-use training facility available to all military services and law enforcement agencies on O'ahu, including U.S. Customs, the FBI, Honolulu Police Department and the Hawai'i National Guard. It is expected to be finished in September.

Brigadier Gen. Gary Ishikawa, deputy adjutant general of the Hawai'i National Guard, said the new facility will be a boon for local troops.

"In the past, the Hawai'i Army National Guard has competed with active and reserve units to utilize the Military Operations in Urban Terrain facilities at Schofield Barracks and sometimes we have traveled to the Mainland to conduct training. With the Marine's new MOUT project, this new option will greatly enhance our ability, as well as the other branches, to prepare our soldiers for any future mission," he said.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.