The project is both fascinating and inspiring: a new hangar is about to be built at the Colorado Springs Airport that will house an extensive collection of World War II aircraft.
The facility’s construction, which has been long on the wish list of officials with the National Museum of World War II Aviation, has taken a significant step forward this summer with site grading undertaken by the Colorado Springs-based T-Bone Construction, Inc.
“We’re really in the design phase right now,” says Michael Thibault, the owner and president of T-Bone. “We have a footprint and elevation and are doing dirt work to bring the site up to grade.”
The new 41,000 square foot hangar will be called the Kaija Raven Aeronautical Pavilion, named in honor of a donor, and is designed to increase the museum’s display space by around 50 percent.
That space matters a lot to a museum that opened in 2013 and today has a collection of around 3,000 artifacts, including more than two dozen World War II airplanes.
Located at 755 Aviation Way, the museum is at the northwest corner of the Colorado Springs Airport and was just last year recognized by Congress as a “national caliber” institution.
That T-Bone won the bid to do the new $6 million hangar probably surprised no one in the Colorado Springs region.
The company, launched in 1987, has for decades made itself known as one of the most resilient and diversified general contractors around, doing building and renovation work on gas stations, restaurants, museums, and schools, and delivering projects both on time and in a cost-effective manner.
“We do a fair amount of convenience stores, we build truck repair facilities, we have built several hangars in different parts of Colorado, and some retail centers,” says Thibault.
“I really don’t think that we have any particular niche,” continues Thibault, “we just have a client base.”
Located in a modern two-story headquarters at 1310 Ford Street in Colorado Springs, T-Bone, notes Construction Today magazine, “owns excavation equipment, operates its own trucking division, and has its own crews that can complete the electrical and cabinetry components of its projects.”
The magazine added that the company also staffs in-house architects to design a structure and a “general contracting team [that] can see it built to completion.”
“We’ve worked all over,” says Thubault, who notes that his company has through the years taken on projects throughout Colorado as well as in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah.
“We’ve worked all over,” says Thubault, who notes that his company has through the years taken on projects throughout Colorado as well as in New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah.
“We’re trying to stay a little bit closer to home, now that the economy is so much better than it was in 2008 and 2009,” says Thibault, “But prior to that we did a little bit of traveling.”
Tribault “kept pitching for the business,” noted Equipment World magazine in 2013 of T-Bone’s endurance during the Great Recession, “expanding his client base out of state and taking on more of the earthmoving on his projects, and when the jobs started trickling back in, the company was well positioned to grow.”
The company, which launched its own specialized fuel service and construction division last year, has also long been community conscious.
It was extensively involved in cleanup efforts after the devastating 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire, the Manitou Springs flooding of 2013, and the Black Forest Fire, also in 2013, that destroyed more than 500 homes in the Colorado Springs area.
Of the many different projects T-Bone is today tackling, Thibault admits he is particularly excited about the new hangar for the aviation museum which is being funded by a combination of grants from the Anschutz Foundation, the El Pomar Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Slattery Family Foundation.
That latter foundation is headed up by Jim Slattery, an aviation expert and respected collector who has donated sixteen aircraft to the museum.
“We are not the architect on this one,” explains Thibault, “but we are doing a kind of design assist, trying to make their dollars stretch as far as they can, and giving the architects advice on what we think is a less expensive way to go, while also maintaining a level of quality.”
T-Bone’s work on the new hangar will most likely start in September. Like all of the company’s projects, it’s expected to be delivered on time, most likely by this coming March.
By Garry Boulard
