Chidlaw Building


 * Not to be confused with the nearby Federal Building used by the military after Ent AFB closed.

The Chidlaw Building was a USAF military installation and headquarters of several Cold War military commands. The facility rented by the military for several decades is now used as a private office building.

Planning
"The requirement for a BMEWS display facility brought consideration early in 1958 on a long-standing need for a new COC". A leased building for a military installation near Ent Air Force Base was proposed in 1958 for the "interim BMEWS central display facility" with "ZI BMEWS equipment" needed in the Zone of the Interior after the date set for the Clear [Air Force Station] site". (The Denver SAGE bunker was cancelled in 1960, and the Colorado Springs NORAD bunker was not started until 1961.) On March 18, 1959, the USAF told the BMEWS Project Office to proceed with the interim facility, and another location option for an "AICBM control center" with an anti-ICBM C3 computer (e.g., when the USAF Wizard and/or Nike Zeus ABMs became operational) was to use the basement of the 1954 NORAD command center building. A "satellite prediction computer" could be added to the missile warning center if "the hardened COC…slipped considerably beyond January 1962". Instead, a BMEWS display facility with "austere and economical construction with minimum equipment" was planned in an "annex to the current COC building" at Ent AFB by September 1960 (the "SPADATS operation center began in July 1961 at building P4's annex). The plan for extra space at a leased facility was instead used for the Combined Operations Center when the delay of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex warranted an earlier Semi-Automatic Ground Environment command post (interim Air Defense Operations Center) for combining NORAD's attack warning and CONAD's weapons direction missions.

Combined Operation Center
The Chidlaw Building was built to house the NORAD "Combined Operations Center" which moved ½ mi (¾ km) from Ent Air Force Base. The facility included a "war room", an IBM 1410 computer in 1965 for systems analysis, and air defense consoles presenting data from various Air Divisions (e.g., for the Goose Air Defense Sector in Canada). Systems which transmitted data to the building included IBM AN/FSQ-8 Combat Control Centrals at SAGE Combat Centers which "forwarded the divisional air defense status to" NORAD.

On October 30, 1961, groundbreaking ceremonies were held a few miles east of downtown Colorado Springs. On June 6, 1962, construction began. And on February 15, 1963—only nine months later—NORAD moved in.

The building was constructed with fortified walls and featured two electrical substations, limited entry access, a 174-seat auditorium, six conference rooms, parking for 1,100 cars and elaborate heating, cooling and ventilation systems. A total of sixty-eight 33-ton prefabricated concrete and steel reinforced slabs, each measuring 24 by 32 feet and seven inches thick, were used in the "tilt-up" construction of the exterior walls. The building has two floors, each spanning 3 1/2 acres. More than 7,000 cubic yards of concrete were poured during construction. The total cost was more than US$2.6 million.

Within the Chidlaw Building, there were 2,950 feet of corridors, more than 2 1/2 miles of movable wall partitions and 722 doors—often making it difficult to find your way around the building. To help staff and visitors navigate throughout the structure, an elaborate mapping system was created where the east-west corridors were called "Runways" and the north-south corridors were called "Taxiways." Hand-held maps were also provided."

As the highest echelon of command and control for the SAGE Defense System, the Chidlaw Building was the primary node of NORAD's Alert Network Number 1 to warn military installations (low rate teletype data, e.g., SAC Emergency War Order Traffic that included "Positive Control/Noah's Ark instructions" through northern NORAD radio sites to confirm or recall SAC bombers if "SAC decided to launch the alert force before receiving an execution order from the JCS".) NORAD/ADC operations transferred to Cheyenne Mountain on April 20, 1966, and the Space Defense Center became fully operational on February 6, 1967 (in 2006, NORAD/NORTHCOM operations transferred to the Peterson Air Force Base command center).

Command headquarters
In addition to the Combined Operations Center, the Chidlaw Building housed the headquarters for several military commands:
 * North American Aerospace Defense Command: NORAD "moved in" to the Chidlaw Building on February 15, 1963. During this so-called "Operation Move," seventeen office locations from around the community were physically consolidated into the new Chidlaw Building. This involved more than 300 moving personnel, 40 moving and open bed trucks, five fork lifts and two cranes. The entire move involved the relocation of approximately 1.5 million pounds of office furniture, equipment and supplies. The move, scheduled over a long holiday weekend, began at 5 p.m. on Thursday and continued around the clock until 8 a.m. on Monday, when the new headquarters was completely "back in business."


 * Continental Air Defense Command: CONAD/NORAD/ADC offices were consolidated on March 7, 1963; and CONAD was disestablished on June 30, 1975.


 * USAF Aerospace Defense Command: On July 1, 1975, "Headquarters ADCOM" was established at the Chidlaw Building when Ent Air Force Base was closing.


 * Air Defense, Tactical Air Command: On 21 September 1979, the ADTAC headquarters of MGen Piotrowski was established at the Chidlaw Building.  ADTAC received Aerospace Defense Command's "atmospheric" assets (interceptors, bases, and SAGE radar stations) on October 1, 1979 (Strategic Air Command "assumed responsibility for missile warning and space surveillance systems").


 * Air Force Space Command: Beginning September 1, 1982, the Chidlaw Building was used as the AFSPC headquarters which moved in November 1987 to Peterson AFB's "Building 1" (renamed Hartinger Building in April 2003). The Chidlaw Building had been the site of the January 1978 presentation to "a general-officer review group chaired by new SAC Commander in Chief General Richard H. Ellis and ADCOM Commander General Hill" formally advocating formation of Space Command.


 * United States Space Command: "During December 1987, 2500 USSPACECOM and AFSPACECOM personnel relocated to their new Headquarters on Peterson AFB [Bldg 1470 (Ent Building) for USSPACECOM] from the Chidlaw Building".

During military withdrawal from the building, paintings were rescued and the chair used by President Kennedy (who received a Cheyenne Mountain briefing on June 5, 1963) was removed to the Peterson Air and Space Museum. Premiere Conferencing later acquired the Chidlaw Building for its Colorado Springs conference center. Several million dollars were spent in 1992 to gut the building, make numerous improvements and turn it into office space. The building went under foreclosure in 2012 with a roughly 55% vacancy, "a Time Warner Cable customer service center…is the building’s largest tenant".