KABUL — For sale: One Canadian army camp on a prime piece of Afghan real estate, complete with clean water supply, sewage system, hot showers and bunker space for 2,400.

Camp Julien, the main Canadian base in Afghanistan, is up for sale about six months after it was built at a cost of $42 million Cdn. The camp has another $50 million in nearly new tents, kitchens, generators, toilets, showers, and water and sewage systems -- all portable items that can be had for the right price.

Officials from NATO and the U.S. army have expressed interest in the base, but negotiations are far from complete.

If no deal is found, Camp Julien could be nearly empty when the Canadian contingent of 2,100 soldiers is reduced in August to about 500. The government has yet to announce what role new troops will play or where they will live. Canada also has Camp Warehouse, a smaller base housing about 400 soldiers near the Kabul airport.

In recent days, U.S. soldiers have inspected Camp Julien. About 250 of their troops will move in over the next month to take advantage of extra space. The soldiers are instructors who work with Canadians to train a nearby brigade of Afghan troops.

Col. Alain Tremblay, the commanding officer of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said a number of options remain open, but he is confident most of the construction cost will be recovered in a sale or lease arrangement.

"It's quite an appealing piece of real estate," Tremblay said Monday, adding that the camp would need to be sold in the next 60 to 90 days.

"I don't think this is going to be a gift to anyone, obviously," he said. "The intent is to prepare ourselves for another mission, one way or another."

One option would be to pack up the camp and move it back to a storage base in Italy "if nobody is willing to pay the right price," Tremblay said. Another would be to leave the 500 troops there and lease out part of the camp.

The equipment at the camp had previously been used in Kosovo and Eritrea.

"It was a long endeavour to build that capability for Canada," Tremblay said. "We're not willing to let it fade away."

Camp Julien sits in a former battlefield on a plateau between two bombed-out Kabul landmarks, the so-called King's and Queen's palaces.

When troops from the 1 Engineer Support Unit arrived from Moncton, N.B., in June, they found a field that had recently been cleared of landmines. They levelled the field and dumped about $2-million worth of dirt and gravel to help drainage and to leave any leftover mines under about 70 centimetres of cover.

The engineers surrounded the base with thick walls made out of cloth and steel-mesh sand containers, each about half the size of a garbage dumpster. A long fence of corrugated steel was put on top to block the view to potential snipers.

Turrets and bunkers were built in case the base ever came under attack. The Canadian military flew in about $50 million in temporary buildings, including a modern hospital with an operating room and X-ray machine and three kitchens that each serve about 700 people at every meal.<

A few dozen bathrooms that fold into one truck-sized shipping container arrived with flush toilets and hot showers. Each costs about $100,000. The army also set up several hundred tents for offices and sleeping quarters. The tents cost about $20,000 each and are well insulated against the Afghan winter.

As a bonus to any potential buyer, army weather forecasters say prevailing winds tend to push dust and other air pollution from Kabul away from the camp.

The most valuable part of the camp may be water and sewage systems that are designed to meet Canadian environmental standards, said Maj. Dave Lauckner, a combat engineer with 5 Mechanized Brigade, based in Valcartier, Que. While Kabul has little clean water, three wells at Camp Julien have enough capacity to supply 6,000 soldiers.

Engineers plan to start bottling water at the base to eliminate the $90,000-per-month expense of importing water from Dubai or Pakistan.

The base is the best equipped in Afghanistan and the only foreign military camp in western Kabul, Lauckner said. Experienced soldiers say it is the best camp Canadian soldiers have had in decades.

"It's unfortunate a lot of the brand-new soldiers think this is the standard," Lauckner said.

"But this is by far the best and most expensive camp we've constructed. But we've had 10 years of practice in Bosnia, Eritrea and Kosovo."

Some senior U.S. soldiers about to move in say they admire the base for its modern hospital and strong defensive measures.

"The camp is outstanding," said Sgt.-Maj. Joe Stover of the 179 Infantry Division based in Oklahoma. Stover's unit is in Afghanistan to train the national army.

"It's at the starting point of the valley, so we have easy access in and out," Stover said. "I believe it is a well-defended camp.

"And the dining facility is excellent."