Springs, Colorado (Associated Press)-The Air Force Academy Chapel is one of Colorado's most distinctive buildings.

But for more than a year, few people have caught a glimpse of it. That's because the entire building is undergoing a thorough restoration in a 14-story "cocoon".

And it is unlikely to appear soon.

Colorado Springs U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel, which cost more than $150 million to refurbish will take months — or maybe more than a year, longer than originally anticipated; contractors are dealing with more asbestos than they expected And other unforeseen challenges.

"We know that this building contains a lot of asbestos. We just can't access all the places that need to be tested for asbestos," said Duane Boyle, the college's campus architect.

The project started two years ago and required the construction of a huge white temporary fence around the iconic 150-foot-tall aluminum building. This "cocoon", as Boyle said, enabled the staff to carefully correct a legacy of frugal design choices from the initial construction of the building in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The architect of the chapel, Walter Netsch Jr. (Walter Netsch Jr.) initially conceived an elaborate gutter system to drain the rainwater that fell on the church. But Boyle said that in order to reduce costs, the idea was abandoned, instead caulking all the seals on the interlocking external aluminum sheet network of the building.

"We caulked 32 miles on this building, which is kind of absurd when you start thinking about this," Boyle said.

The caulking material cannot withstand the influence of factors in the Pikes Peak area, and the chapel has been leaking since it was opened. Extensive floods in the past 60 years have led to restoration work, which included the removal of every aluminum plate and more than 20,000 brick-sized colored glass blocks.

Now the temporary building is just a huge steel frame covered with rust-colored primer. Inside, the building is almost unrecognizable. Fourteen layers of scaffolding filled the main Protestant church.

Many items that were once inside, from benches to the two huge church organs in the facility, are being completely restored due to water damage or disrepair.

Boyle said that dealing with the additional asbestos pollution found in the church will make the project exceed the original completion date of 2023, but he is not prepared to estimate how long it may take.

But the plan remains the same: in the end, every bench, organ tube, aluminum plate, and stained glass brick will be refurbished or carefully rebuilt, and accurately placed back in its original position, with an important content added. The staff finally installed Netsch's original drainage system to replace the ineffective caulking mileage.

Looking at all the work around him, Boyle recently made a bold assessment of the cause he is responsible for: "I think it will become one of the most complex and dense historical preservation projects in history."