Chidlaw Building 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 C 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 Central s 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 : 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 " .