The last City for Champions Project isn’t expected to open for nearly two years — a new visitor center for the U.S. Air Force Academy, named for retired Lt. Gen. Bradley Hosmer, the first academy graduate to serve as the institution’s superintendent. The center and a nearby 375-room hotel, called the Hotel Polaris at the U.S. Air Force Academy, are under construction in the 51-acre TrueNorth Commons project just outside the academy’s North Gate.

Dan Schnepf, CEO of Blue & Silver Development Partners, developer of TrueNorth Commons, said the hotel is scheduled to open in November, and the visitors center probably will partially open (its first floor) in December 2025, with the mezzanine of the center opening in April or May 2026, or about two years after the company turns over the building to the academy.

That time is needed to install exhibits in the new center, which will replace the more than 40-year-old current center west of the cadet area, which has drawn fewer visitors in the era of tightened security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

On Thursday, the Colorado Economic Development Commission unanimously approved a delay in the center’s opening Dec. 31, 2025, though commission member Chris Franz, the only Colorado Springs member of the commission, said he was both surprised and disappointed by the delay. The commission said the delay requires the entire center, including its mezzanine, to be open by the end of 2025.

Carlos Cruz-Gonzalez, the academy’s director of logistics, engineering and force protection, attributed the delays in opening the center to federal regulations on contracting that delayed securing funding until earlier this year. He said retiring academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Richard Clark wants the entire project done by the end of 2025. The Air Force and the Air Force Academy Foundation have allocated $24 million to designing, fabricating and installing the exhibits, which will be completed by a partnership of Idaho-based constructor Nasco and Washington, D.C.-based design firm Gallagher & Associates. Gallagher also designed exhibits for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum.

The center is designed with a roof that looks like a wing in flight, and its exhibits will be designed to show visitors a day in the life of cadets and their journey from arrival to graduation, reflecting academics, military training, athletics, research and other elements of a cadet’s education. The exhibits will use technology including artificial intelligence, “experiential learning,” interactive displays and flight simulators, such as using virtual reality to allow visitors to experience a cadet making a parachute jump, for example. The six galleries will focus on academy values and character, cadet basic training and campus life, learning and training at the academy, tradition and ceremonies and a vision of the future that includes space, national security, research and technology.

The new visitor center is expected to draw 1 million visitors annually, similar to the number the current center attracted before Sept. 11, and will be connected to the hotel by a pedestrian bridge over North Gate Boulevard. The nine-story hotel will be the city’s second largest after The Broadmoor, is designed with the intent of winning a four-diamond rating from AAA and will have unobstructed views of the academy campus and the Rampart Range.

Hotel Polaris will be managed by Greenwood Village-based CoralTree Hospitality, which owns the Magnolia chain of hotels, and will feature 26,000 square feet of meeting space, two flight simulators, a large sun deck, outdoor pool, firepits, outdoor game and rooftop lawn areas as well as a full-service restaurant, a 1950s-themed diner, another full-service restaurant and bar on the top floor, a poolside café, a full-service spa, fitness center and pantry/gift shop.

High interest rates and surging construction costs have put the brakes on an office park, retail and restaurant development in TrueNorth Commons, but Schnepf said interest in the project remains strong among potential tenants. Dallas-based office developer KDC has replaced Koelbel & Co. as developer of the office park and is negotiating a lease with consulting giant Deloitte to be the anchor tenant in an office building that would open in summer 2026. Blue & Silver also has commitments for about 10,000 square feet of retail space that probably would open in late 2026 or early 2027.

Schnepf said earlier this year that delays in the office, retail and restaurant parts of the project may require a bond restructuring since property tax from the office complex, retail and restaurant development was to fund 38% of the bond repayment. However, forecasts for revenue from the hotel have increased and probably eliminated the need to restructure the bonds, Schnepf said.

RBC Capital Markets sold more than $400 million in bonds in January 2022 to finance the visitor center and hotel. Revenue and taxes generated by the center, hotel, office park, retail and restaurants are expected to repay those bonds.

Schnepf estimates TrueNorth Commons will generate more than $100 million a year in economic activity when all parts of the project are completed, open and operating.