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Obama Presidential Center pushes opening to 2026, Moody Nolan's athletics center to break ground this month

2024-03-11T12:04:00-04:00

The Moody Nolan-designed Obama Presidential Center Programs & Athletics Center project in Chicago’s Jackson Park has been scheduled to break ground later this month.

Project updates were reported late last week by the Chicago Sun-Times on the occasion of former President Obama's visit to McCormick Place to see a half-scale mockup of the 88-foot "Power of Words" video installation, the largest of 50 that will grace the Obama Presidential Center when it opens at a recently revised date in 2026.

The new opening date was provided by Obama Presidential Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett in an update to local reporters. The Center is slated to include three other buildings: the main museum tower from TWBTA, a new Chicago Public Library branch, and a forum/auditorium space with an indoor winter garden, completed by Maya Lin's water garden design and a 19.3-acre landscaped design by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

Rendering of the upcoming Obama Presidential Center Athletics Center. Image ...

Watch Barack Obama break ground on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago

2021-09-29T18:29:00-04:00

On Tuesday, Barack Obama broke ground on his highly anticipated presidential center on the South Side of Chicago.

In an hour-long ceremony at the 19-acre site in Jackson Park, Obama, joined by his wife and former First Lady, Michelle Obama, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, shared their remarks celebrating the long-awaited project before scooping up dirt with commemorative shovels.

“This day has been a long time coming,” said Mr. Obama. “We had originally hoped to hold a bigger, festive event, but the pandemic had other plans, so we’re keeping this small for now.”

Departing from similar projects recognizing former presidents, the center has been envisioned to host lectures, trainings, cultural events, concerts, and conversations, instead of acting as a presidential library.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” the former president continued. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia o...

Judge dismisses lawsuit against planned Obama Presidential Center in Chicago's Jackson Park

2019-06-11T18:48:00-04:00

In a surprising move, a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the city of Chicago was within its authority when it approved the Obama Foundation’s plan to build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park. After listening to nearly an hour of arguments on both sides, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey said construction of the sprawling Obama center campus can begin and dismissed the lawsuit filed by environmentalists that aimed to halt it.

Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the planned Obama Presidential Center in Chicago's Jackson Park has faced strong opposition from the start and was barred from commencing construction due to the pending lawsuit brought forward by the group, Protect Our Parks.

"Even though this might be an important case, it’s not a difficult case," said U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey. "The park should have … be considered for what it is — a park and not a nature preserve."

Image courtesy of Obama Foundation

Obama Foundation CEO David Simas commented on the ruling in a statement: "We are thrilled with the City’s victory and grateful to all of those in Chicago and beyond who have believed in this project and made their voices heard every step of the way. Our vision for the Obama Presidential Center has always been one where the location reinforces the project’s core aims: a celebration of history, a place of connection and engagement for the public, and an investment in commun...

Obama Center parking garage proposal: community groups offer feedback after latest design revisions

2017-12-28T14:15:00-05:00

The Obama Center design team has been reworking plans for a proposed controversial garage on a portion of the historic Midway Plaisance, across the street from where the presidential complex is to be built in Jackson Park. [...] When I left off on this story in November, Tod Williams, one of the architects, said relocating the garage was under consideration, given the concerns of community groups for the historic publicly owned Midway property.

Curbed Chicago picks up the story where the Chicago Sun-Times left off and reports about some of the praise and criticism that was presented at a meeting the Obama Foundation had called on December 20 at its Hyde Park Headquarters. The hearing was led by the project's architects Tod Williams, Billie Tsien, Dina Griffin as well as the landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh.

Funding of Obama Presidential Center raises concerns

2017-08-24T09:00:00-04:00

Plans for the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park are being firmed up largely out of public view, and one watchdog group is sounding the alarm about the lack of transparency. Decisions on the design of the center, the park’s golf course and even whether to eliminate some roads in the park are being worked out by the Obama Foundation, City Hall and the Chicago Park District.

Designed by the New York-based firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the Obama Presidential Center will consist of three buildings—a museum, a forum, and a library located near a lagoon that runs into Lake Michigan in Chicago's Jackson Park neighborhood. However, recently Jackson Park Watch has sent a letter to City Hall outlining their concerns about the lack of transparency throughout the planning process.

After many months, the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Department of Transportation have not yet put a price tag on the roadway and infrastructure changes tied to the Obama Center and the proposal to merge the Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses into a single championship-caliber course, which would involve closing Cornell Drive and Marquette Drive, building a pair of new underpasses, possibly an underground garage and improving the shoreline.

The past four community meetings in June and July have not provided the public with any details about proposed street c...

Obama's Presidential Center through the landscape architecture lens

2017-05-24T15:15:00-04:00

The most important question related to the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side doesn’t have that much to do with its architecture. It is instead: What kind of landscape stewardship can a presidential museum and library offer? To be located in Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Jackson Park, the project already has a heap of canonical landscape history to contend with. So can the Obama library make a great park greater?

"So this new landscape has the potential to improve upon the already very good. But for whom?," Zach Mortice asks in his piece for Landscape Architecture Magazine. "Will these grounds remain public and accessible for all South Siders and Chicagoans, free of charge?"

The Twitterverse Responds to Obama's Presidential Library

2017-05-08T18:34:00-04:00

During Obama's unveiling of plans for his upcoming Presidential Library and Center, the former POTUS revealed his young ambitions of being an architect. During yesterdays events, he proclaimed "I wanted to be an architect when I was a kid. Somehow, I took a wrong turn." Back in June, Obama chose architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to design the foundation, but the community-organizer from Chicago has remained quite active in the planning process for his building, even sending the team back to the drawing boards after finding their initial design a little too quiet.

Blair Kamin, of the The Chicago Tribune, is as of yet, the only reporter to give his take on the plans. While he is hopeful that kinks will be worked out, he would like to see Obama's populist agenda for the center reflected more in the completed design. But, now that the plans have been released to the public, everyone gets to be a critic and responses to the design, concept, potential effects to the surrounding com...

Take a look at the first images of the design for the Obama Presidential Center by TWBTA

2017-05-03T18:55:00-04:00

As promised, initial designs for the Obama Presidential Center by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects were released today. The Center will be composed of three buildings—the Museum, the Forum, and the Library—that surround a rectangular plaza.

The four primary sides of the Museum, the tallest structure on the site, are hexagons, sloping out as they rise before tapering back in about a quarter of the way up the building. In the drawings, the Museum, as well as the other two buildings, appears to be clad in stone. The façades are punctured with a few narrow rectangular windows. On the south-western corner of the Museum, a chunk is cut out of the bottom half and the resulting vertical surfaces of the indentation are glazed. On the opposite corner, the top half is cut out, producing a balcony. A large entrance on the southern side leads out to the plaza via a ramp.

The Forum and the Library line the southern and eastern edges of the plaza. They will be single-story structures with terrac...

Obama said to reveal 3D model of Presidential Center on Wednesday

2017-05-02T13:26:00-04:00

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Obamas will finally reveal a conceptual model of the former president’s library and museum tomorrow. The Obamas are to release the three-dimensional model at a community meeting event at the South Shore Cultural Center, which also happens to be where the couple held their 1992 wedding reception. Expected to attend the event is Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also served as the president’s first White House Chief of Staff. Obama will host a roundtable discussion, giving an update on the center, followed by feedback from community leaders—a format that makes sense given that Obama got his start as a community organizer in Chicago and has long been a champion of civic engagement.

The Presidential Center, which is being designed by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, has been estimated to cost anywhere from $500 million to $1.5 billion and will be located in Jackson Park, a choice that has been controversial. Some are worried that developme...

Obama chooses Jackson Park as the site for his Presidential Center

2016-07-27T18:59:00-04:00

According to the Chicago Tribune, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have finally settled on a site for the Obama Presidential Center: historic Jackson Park. Adjacent to the University of Chicago, the park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. An official announcement is expected next week.

The 500 acre park is also near the Museum of Science and Industry, the lakefront, Lake Shore Drive and two Metra train stations. It borders the Woodlawn neighborhood, described by the Tribune as "beginning to gentrify", and Hyde Park.

According to the Tribune, the park is "less challenging" than the other contender, Washington Park. While both sites are in poorer neighborhoods outside of the city center – a first for a presidential library –, the Washington Park neighborhood is more economically depressed than Jackson Park. One third of the land in Washington Park is vacant.

Estimated to cost $500 million, the Presidential Center will be designed by Tod Williams a...