Former President Barack Obama returned to Chicago’s South Side on Tuesday for the ceremonial groundbreaking of his multimillion-dollar presidential center following years of delays, protests, and lawsuits.
Calling Chicago the place he “finally put [his] ideas about democracy and activism and social change to the test,” the former president said the center would be a place that helps foster future leaders.
“Chicago is where I found the purpose I’d been seeking,” Obama said. “Chicago is where everything most precious to me begins.”
OBAMA-NOMINATED JUDGE DEALS LEGAL SETBACK TO GROUP AGAINST HIS PRESIDENTIAL CENTER
Five years ago, Obama chose Chicago’s Jackson Park as the site of his presidential center. The location was pitched as an economic windfall for the South Side, giving it a long-overdue transformation and the distinction of being the place the country’s first black president and first lady could tell their story.
Some community organizers pushed back on the center’s development, fearing it would become a tourist attraction that would lead to gentrification of the neighborhood. Park preservationists also had environmental issues and challenged the construction in court.
The opening of the center was initially slated for 2021.
Former first lady Michelle Obama, raised on the South Side, said the creation of the center allowed the couple to “give back something big and important and meaningful to the community that has given us so much.”
President Joe Biden delivered a taped message, praising the former first couple on their “dignity and grace.”
“Barack and Michelle led by the power of their example,” he said. “They made clear a simple truth: that progress in our nation is not measured by a single presidency alone, as consequential as it is, it’s measured by all of us.”
Presidential libraries typically open in about half the time it has taken for the Obama center. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library opened a little more than 1,000 days after his last day in office. Bill Clinton’s center took 1,398 days before it welcomed visitors, while monuments to George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush averaged 1,653 days, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal. If there are no further delays, the Obama center will open in four years — more than 3,100 days after he left office.
The center’s urban environment has created headaches for developers. The site is located in the middle of Jackson Park, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its proximity to the Museum of Science and Industry has also triggered multiple federal reviews and legal challenges.
ARCHITECTS SELECTED FOR OBAMA’S PRESIDENTIAL CENTER
Ahead of Tuesday’s groundbreaking, Barack Obama defended the location.
“The truth is, any time you do a big project — unless you’re in the middle of a field somewhere, you know, and it’s on private property — there’s always going to be some people who say, ‘Well, but we don’t want change. We’re worried about it. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out,'” the former president told Good Morning America. “Which is why we’ve gone through such an exhaustive process to encourage and elicit comments and concerns and criticism and suggestions from the community.”
A lengthy four-year federal review, which ended in February, determined the new Obama center would pose “no significant impact to the human environment.”
Protect Our Parks, a nonprofit park preservationist organization that filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to block construction in 2018 before filing another one in April, challenged the findings of the federal review. On Aug. 21, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal by the group to block construction. On Sept. 20, the group filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Seventh Circuit in support of its preliminary injunction request.
The Obama Presidential Center will include a library, museum, gardens, and a children’s playground.
“(The Obama Presidential Center) will breathe new life into a park that has long been protected and loved, but underused,” said the Obama Foundation, which is funding the project. “And it will uphold our commitment to this vibrant community.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Also in attendance at the groundbreaking was Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who predicted the presidential center would be a “transformative investment” on the South Side.
Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker said the “center will grow as the Obamas have lived, with work rooted in creating new leaders amongst neighbors” and “bringing more resources to a community that has historically received less.”
