The $830 Million Obama Center: Progress or Problem? The Story Behind the Delays, Millions Spent Over Budget, and Lawsuits Claiming Racial Discrimination
A 53-year-old construction worker who fell several floors into a ventilation duct at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago last month is just the latest development causing concerns around the building of the center, whose budget has ballooned while its opening date has been repeatedly delayed.
The worker, who suffered multiple injuries, was rushed to a hospital and later said to be in good condition, while a team from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) reported to the site to investigate the incident and to ensure the safety of other workers.
Meanwhile, on Jan. 17, a Black concrete contractor, Robert McGee, filed a $41 million lawsuit against the structural engineering firm on the project, claiming that racial discrimination and unexpected design changes caused long delays, cost overruns, damage to his reputation, and have him on the verge of bankruptcy.
Emily Bittner, vice president of communications for the Obama Foundation, which owns and manages the project, said the foundation sees no “racist intent” in the actions of the structural engineer, Thornton Tomasetti, which blamed McGee and his concrete construction partners for shoddy work that had to be corrected, adding time and expense to the project.
The Obama complex, which will include a museum, community forum building, auditorium, an athletic center with an NBA-level gym, a fruit and vegetable garden, and a Chicago library branch on its 19-acre campus, was first announced in 2015 and broke ground in September 2021. That followed years of legal challenges to its construction in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side, where local, predominantly Black residents have expressed concerns about loss of parkland, gentrification and rising housing costs.
In 2020 the efforts of a coalition of community organizers led to the passage of the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance, which requires 25 percent of city-owned vacant land in the area to be set aside for affordable housing, and dedicates funds for helping homeowners to repair their buildings, reported In These Times.
As of early 2024, most of the 52 lots designated for affordable housing remained undeveloped, according to the Hyde Park Herald.
Other groups representing Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood are still pushing for a city ordinance to create protections for renters and homeowners, where rents have risen by as much as 60 percent and investors have bought up nearly a third of homes for sale since the Obama center building got underway.
But one long-running legal challenge has been resolved in the Obama center’s favor. In April of 2024, a federal appeals court judge ruled against a parks advocacy group that had argued that the city’s agreement to lease a swath of Jackson Park to Obama’s foundation violated the public trust, and that the center itself would diminish the natural environment and historic uses of the park.
Obama has promised that oak trees, gardens and birds cleared out for construction would in time return to the parkland in and around the center, which is meant to showcase and serve the community where Michelle Obama was raised and where Barack Obama launched his political career through street-level community organizing.
Part of Obama’s vision for the center is for it to serve as a community hub including free, public areas for people to relax, visit and learn in, as well as leadership training and community forums for civic-minded folks.
At its groundbreaking in September 2021, Obama said, “We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research. It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ball gowns, although everybody will come see those. … We want this to be a living, thriving home for concerts, cultural events, lectures, trainings, summits, topical dialogues and conversations. We want this to be a hub for in-house fellows with real-world experience to share what’s working and what’s not in solving the big problems of the day. We envision this as a place where residents and visitors from all over the world come together and restore the promise of the people’s park.”
The center will also house the Obama Foundation, which has since 2017 been running programs offering college scholarships and promoting leadership development and community service to diverse groups of young people and other would-be changemakers in the U.S. and around the world.
The Obama center’s opening in spring of 2026 will mark the longest gap between the end of a modern president’s time in the White House and the opening of their museum — at least 3,300 days. By comparison, the libraries of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush took an average of 1,653 days, Bill Clinton’s took 1,398, and Ronald Reagan’s 1,000 days, reported The Hill.
The concrete work was finally completed in October, allowing the museum and other buildings of the center to be enclosed and glass to be installed, according to a post by Lakeside Alliance, the general contractor. The firm also began work on interior finishes and building the Oval Office replica in the center’s museum and the Sky Room, which will offer sweeping views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline, the foundation reported.
In November, a colorful 83-foot painted glass work by acclaimed Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu was installed on the side of the hulking, 225-foot, stone-covered library tower, a design element that former president Barack Obama has called “one of the most important aspects of the center.”
Inspired by his remarks at the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Mehretu worked with Obama to craft the abstract art piece that Obama said “will become an iconic contribution to the South Side and Chicago.”
The cost of building the privately-funded center, originally estimated at $500 million, has since grown to $830 million. In 2022 the Foundation set a goal of raising $1.6 billion, with $470 million going towards an endowment, $320 million for foundation global programming, and the rest —$830 million — supporting the center, according to Inside Philanthropy.
And 2022 was a banner year for fundraising, when two tech billionaires each donated $100 million to go towards programming — Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos and Brian Chesky, founder and CEO of AirBnB, driving an annual campaign that totaled $311 million.
In 2023, the foundation raised only $129 million in contributions, its lowest amount in the last seven years, raising some concerns that deep pocket donors were backing away from the project.
But the foundation had raised $1.5 billion through the end of 2023, with net assets of $962 million, keeping it on track to hit its $1.6 billion fundraising goal, foundation spokeswoman Gloria Nlewedim told the Chicago Tribune.
She noted that the foundation got fewer gifts in excess of $25 million than in previous years, but saw significant growth in smaller donations below $1 million, “which is critical to building a long-term sustainable fundraising program.”
Overall, the Obama Foundation has bigger fundraising ambitions than other presidential foundations, noted Inside Philanthropy.
The Clinton Foundation reported an endowment of $208 million in 2022, with net assets of $302 million and contributions of $21 million. The George W. Bush Presidential Center reported $21 million in contributions in 2023.
The Obama Foundation, which employed 312 people in 2023 and had operating expenses of $88 million, also spent more on mission-driven programming than in any other year — $34 million, according to its tax filing, the Tribune reported.
Most of that programming focuses on mentorship and training in programs including the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, which “fosters opportunities and access for boys and young men of color,” the Obama Youth Job Corps, and the Girls Opportunity Alliance, which in 2023 supported 42 grassroots organizations in 18 countries helping girls stay in school and get access to STEM education, end child marriage and address gender-based violence.
According to the Obama Foundation’s 2023 annual report, the foundation paid Lakeside Alliance, a joint venture made up of minority contractors, about $270 million between 2019 and 2023. Through the end of 2023, the foundation had spent $393 million on construction costs.
The report said 54 percent of services contracted and paid for the Obama Presidential Center build in that year were delivered by diverse businesses, including minorities, women and people with disabilities. And 38 percent of workforce hours were performed by South Side and West Side residents.
In June of 2024, during its topping off ceremony where Obama came and signed a beam that was installed on the tower’s top floor, the foundation called the center halfway built.
The Obama Foundation also reported in 2024 that the next two-year cohort of 100 Obama-Chesky fellows had received its Voyager Scholarship, which provides up to $80,000 per scholar to support summer travel service-learning experiences, college expenses, and post-college travel experiences for students who intend to pursue careers in public service.
The 2024 annual report has not yet been released by the Obama Foundation, which did not respond to a request for comment from Atlanta Black Star regarding recent progress on its fundraising and Obama Presidential Center construction goals