Obama Presidential Center to open this month following years of legal battles, construction delays

Following years of a legal battle and backlash from park activists and locals, the 19.3-acre, $850-million Obama Presidential Center will open in Chicago on June 19.

The center – encompassing a museum, an athletic center, cafe and restaurant, a branch of the Chicago Public Library and more – is located in the historic Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago near the University of Chicago’s campus and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

The Obama Foundation expected the project to cost $500 million when it broke ground in September 2021. However, the project will end up costing roughly $350 million more with an estimated total price of $850 million.

The center has faced extensive opposition in the years since the project was announced. Three longtime residents of the city and Protect Our Parks, Inc., a grassroots nonprofit and activist group, took legal action against the city of Chicago and the Chicago Park District in 2018 for “deceptively taking over coveted lakefront land for $1” and transferring the property to the Obama Foundation to construct the center.

The group continued fighting at the local and federal levels throughout the course of the center’s approval, planning and construction. It filed a total of two lawsuits, three Seventh Circuit appeals and two petitions for certiorari up until the U.S. Supreme Court denied the group’s last petition for certiorari, which officially closed litigation.

U.S. District Judge John Blakey, who oversaw much of the years-long court battle, said when dismissing the second lawsuit on Nov. 3, 2022, that “no genuine disputes of material fact exist” on the case’s remaining counts.

He previously dismissed the group’s 2019 lawsuit. The group tried again in 2021 with the argument that federal agencies failed to review the center’s impact on its surrounding environment, but Blakey still decided against granting them a preliminary injunction in August 2021.

The judge maintained the stance that the activists “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In February, locals and social media users expressed discontent with the center’s architectural design.

Chicago Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bay posted Feb. 17 on X that the text wrapping around the top of the building, an excerpt from Obama’s 2015 Selma speech on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, was “tough to read.”

One user said the building looked like a “Klingon prison” – a “Star Trek” reference – and several others mocked the text’s confusing layout.

“He put his own speech on the outside of his library?” a user said. “Find yourself someone who loves you like Obama loves himself.”

Others commented that the construction gentrifies Chicago’s South Side, one saying that “(the center) actually does look good … but right now the main problem seems to be the gentrification and house price increases in the neighborhood.”

Local community groups have long expressed concern that the center’s presence would price out current residents in the area, considering the foundation estimates the center will bring 750,000 campus visitors a year and 300 permanent jobs.

President Donald Trump recently criticized the center on Truth Social, posting an image May 3 of a giant trash can in a parking lot under the headline “The Obama Presidential Library.” In another Truth Social post on Feb. 22, Trump said the center was delayed, over budget and a “complete disaster.”

Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett told USA TODAY on Wednesday that Trump can judge for himself once the museum opens.

“When our visitors come, they will see a spectacular campus,” she said. “If (Trump) would like to come and visit it himself, we would welcome him and give him a tour.”

As of Wednesday, tickets to the center’s museum have sold out until the end of August.

Katherine Pugh is an intern reporter for Just the News. You can find her on X.