Playas, N.M. ? A community center, an airstrip, 259 homes and more than 1,000 acres of nearby land? $3.2 million. Owning a once-humming mining town in a remote corner of New Mexico? Priceless.

Playas, a virtual ghost town since Phelps Dodge Corp. halted operations at a nearby copper smelter in September 1999, has been put up for sale by the mining giant.

The 640-acre town was built between 1974 and 1977 to house smelter workers. Now it’s home to a few renters and a small crew kept on at the smelter.

But Playas is far from just about everything. Groceries can be bought in Lordsburg, 35 minutes away by car. The nearest movie theaters are in Silver City, a 75-minute drive, and Deming, about an hour away. The nearest mall is in Las Cruces, a two-hour drive.

“I think it will be a hard sell,” said smelter superintendent Tommy Townsend, who oversees the town’s maintenance. “We’re a long way from anything.”