Available: 6,300 square feet of meeting/conference/reception space. Plenty of parking and easy access to highway. Classrooms nearby. Bleachers optional. Patriotic theme provided.

Bonus: competitive rates and the chance to save the taxpayers some money.

That, in a nutshell, is the message Marc Belanger is trying to spread. Belanger is in charge of arranging rentals and leases of the state’s 19 National Guard armories. Stretching from Fort Kent to Sanford and Norway to Calais, the armories’ drill halls are used to train National Guard soldiers about three days of the month. That leaves plenty of other time to rent out the space.

“Armories were very important to communities through the ’60s,” said Belanger as he toured the Lewiston armory on Alfred Plourde Parkway. “As populations grew and new high schools were built, gymnasiums or auditoriums replaced the use of the local armory. But the availability is still there and we’re trying to reconnect the buildings to the communities.”

Maine’s National Guard grew from a militia when the state won independence in 1820. Armories were built to train the grass-roots soldiers who, to this day, provide community as well as military service. They now fall under the state’s Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management.

Belanger describes the facilities as “not posh, but functional and utilitarian.” The Lewiston drill hall is similar in scale to a high school gymnasium. Concrete walls extend to an open ceiling and a set of bleachers is folded against one wall. Linoleum covers the floor and there’s a garage door that can be opened to allow machinery in and out of the hall. The walls are painted with a wide band of blue, topped with a narrow band of red, and then white right up to the ceiling line. At one end is a mural depicting the National Guard logo and at the other, a huge American flag hanging from the rafters.

Belanger has seen amazing things done with the space to suit the occasion. For a dance, streamers and balloons created a lower ceiling and a stage was set up. Some people have erected tents in the hall for displays. One renter used the garage door to bring in the components of a log home, then rebuilt the home in the hall for a trade show.

There are no kitchen facilities at the Lewiston armory, although the culinary school of the Lewiston Regional Technical Center is right next door. Available classrooms are upstairs.

Belanger said the armory in Norway, which he described as “beautiful” since it was renovated four years ago, has kitchen facilities attached to the drill hall. It also has a bank of windows at one end of the bigger (10,000 square feet) hall that allows for lots of natural light.

The rental prices are competitive. Standard rate for the Lewiston hall is $500 for the entire day; $350 for service organizations; $300 for state government functions. Belanger said there can be special considerations for organizations that can’t afford those fees.

“We don’t have to be focused exclusively on the bottom line,” he said. “We want to become more involved in the communities and accommodate where we can.”

The money raised from the rentals goes directly into a fund to pay for the repair and maintenance of the armories around the state. More than $500,000 has been raised since 1997.

“The Army National Guard has not received (tax) money for repair and maintenance of the facilities for the past five years,” said Belanger. He was hired in January to promote the armories and raise their revenues.

To that end, Belanger has joined the Androscoggin and Oxford Hills chambers of commerce to network and is preparing a program to market the space for trade shows. He chuckles at the notoriety the Lewiston armory received last January when the culinary school was used as meeting space for a neo-Nazi rally.

“I guess it did raise our profile a little bit,” he said. “What’s that they say about publicity … all publicity is good? Well …”

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