Underneath its giant white box, the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel has been stripped down to its bones, so it can be rebuilt closer to the architect’s original vision — without the constant leaking that has plagued it since opening.

Workers removed the final exterior aluminum panel from the building Thursday morning, the last of 1,008, marking the end of the deconstruction phase of the $220 million project and the beginning of restoration.

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After closing the chapel for renovation work in late 2019, crews have about four more years of remodeling ahead with reopening slated for 2027.

The work will reinstate design elements envisioned by original architect Walter Netsch, including a critical internal water barrier, needed to prevent leaking that was cut out to save money, said Duane Boyle, the current architect. Rather than put in the barrier, crews put in 32 miles of caulking that immediately failed.

So in the 1960s, numerous stop-gap measures went in, including storm windows over the stained glass that blocked a third to half the light.

“Nobody’s ever seen the brilliance of the stained glass as originally intended,” Boyle said.

With reconstruction those Band-Aids will go away, because crews are installing aluminum panels that will fit inside the outward facing tetrahedrons to waterproof the building. The result will let in far more light through the original stained glass, which is also getting repaired by the original manufacturer.

After working with Netsch for decades, Boyle has been dedicated to ensuring the chapel will have the same “living feel” as it did before, with the aluminum changing constantly with the light and the seasons. It took four years to determine how the effect was achieved with aluminum that does not have an industry standardized protective coating, he said.

So when the new panels go up, the chapel will be shiny as it was in the early ’60s and over time will develop the gray patina it had when it closed, he said.

Another time-consuming challenge has been removing 147 dumpsters of asbestos used for insulation and fireproofing.

Crews removed some of it manually and also developed a process of using dry ice to turn the asbestos into a dust for removal, said Carlos Cruz-Gonzalez, director of logistics, engineering and force protection.

The work increased the overall cost of the project by $62 million. The project was originally estimated to cost $158 million and there have been a few other smaller changes that have also increased costs, he said.

With such an investment, Boyle said he expected the work will last for decades and finally stop the severe leaking.

For example, when the Air Force Academy turned over the keys to the general contractor, 6 inches of snow had fallen and it “literally was raining” inside the building, said Marty Rickett, a senior project manager for JE Dunn, the general contractor.

The water had also damaged about a third of the pipes of one of the organs, he said.

In the years ahead, crews will put far more “skin” back on the frame of the building, contributing to the timeline, Rickett said. Crews will have almost double the number of pieces to reinstall because of the newly added interior aluminum panels. Every panel will be custom manufactured.

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The work on the building is expected to wrap up in the third quarter of 2026, Cruz-Gonzalez said, and crews will start refurbishing granite elements around the building.

While the chapel does not have the long history of the European cathedrals that inspired it, such as Notre Dame in Paris, Boyle said crews are paying the same attention to detail in its restoration as those working to rebuild the iconic French structure after a fire broke out under the roof in 2019.

As the most visited man-made tourist attraction in the state, it is a powerful symbol of spiritual resilience and religious freedom in its own right, said Col. Julian Gaither, the academy’s senior chaplain.

“This chapel remains a beacon of hope of resilience not only for our family members, but also for our military (personnel) all over the world,” he said.