The new Air Force Academy Visitor Center and adjacent campus is at long last getting back on track, about 20 months after the coronavirus derailed the bond sales for the project.

About $320 million in bonds for the project hit the market earlier this month and they are expected to be sold by Nov. 10, said Bob Cope, Colorado Springs’ economic development officer. Once the financing is in place this fall, crews can start grading the property and installing infrastructure outside of the academy’s north gate near Interstate 25. Buildings are expected to start going up in April and May, said Dan Schnepf, president of Blue & Silver Development Partners.

The new visitor center, designed to look like a wing in flight, will replace the existing 1980s building, serve as an official Colorado Visitor Center and offer interactive exhibits. The modern design for the building was selected as the perfect representation of the Air Academy and Air Force, said Carlos Cruz-Gonzalez, director of logistics, engineering and force protection at the academy.

“The form of the building really encapsulates what the Air Force Academy is all about. … We call it ‘the soaring roof,'” Cruz-Gonzalez said.

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The visitor center and infrastructure is expected to require about $86 million in bonds and the accompanying new hotel and conference center is expected to require about $233 million, Schnepf said. The cost is up from about $285 million in bonds needed when they were scheduled for sale in March 2020, when the bond market collapsed. The increase is a function of inflation and other pressures on the development industry.

The bond sales have been pushed back a few times, in part, because it took time to get the complex bond documentation finalized and for the hospitality and bond markets to stabilize, Cope said.

The delay has also put the projects on a tight timeline for development. The center is scheduled to be built by June 16, 2023 so that the academy can start work on exhibits and the center can open on time in December 2023, Schnepf said. He is confident that crews can meet the deadline.

The center and adjacent 36-acre development, known as True North Commons, is the most expansive of the five City for Champions projects funded, in part, by state sales taxes — and the last to get underway. Other City for Champions projects include the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum, Weidner Field and Robson Area, all aimed at boosting tourism as well.

The new visitor center could draw around 800,000 tourists a year, helping restore the center’s popularity as a destination, Cope said previously.

At one time, the visitor center saw more people than any other man-made tourist venue in the state — but that trend declined because of new rules to enter academy property instituted after 9/11, he said.

For years academy boosters and some superintendents have aimed to move the attraction outside the gates, a step that could keep the attraction open even when the military installation needs to be closed.

The center drew 304,777 people in 2019, Air Force Academy spokesman Dean Miller said. From March 2020 through August 2021, the academy was closed to civilian visitors completely because of the pandemic, Cruz-Gonzalez said.

Schnepf is confident the center and the 375-hotel can draw throngs of visitors and fill the new lodging, which is key because the hotel and conference center is expected to be one of the main revenue drivers to repay the bonds. The hotel is nonprofit so all that would normally be counted as profit can pay off its bonds, he said.

After coronavirus setbacks, Air Force Academy Visitor Center work expected to get underway in early 2021

The hotel will be competing with a slew of new lodging options in town, but it will be set apart in quality — competing with destination hotels like the Broadmoor — and it can serve those people attending events at the academy, such as weddings, parents’ weekend and football games, he said.

The academy’s student body is about 4,000 cadets and on parents weekend the school can host 8,000 to 10,000 people, Cruz-Gonzalez said.

The hotel and conference center is expected to open in May 2024 and it will be followed by surrounding retail and office development. The campus will include a gas station, restaurants, retailers and a new Pikes Peak Library District location, Schnepf  said.

Cyber security and other Department of Defense contractors are expected to move into the new office space and could potentially offer educational opportunities for cadets.

The whole campus is expected to directly employ 900 people, including office workers and indirectly provide jobs for 260 more through contracts and jobs created by employee spending, Cope said previously.

The entire complex could be finished by 2026, Schnepf said.

The newly developed land will be controlled by Blue & Silver Development Partners, which holds a 50-year lease with the academy for the area and will sublease it out to others, he said.

Air Force Academy Visitor Center, nonprofit hotel and conference center plan summer ground breaking