Supporters ‘see light at the end of the tunnel’
Obama Presidential Center opponents say it’s not over yet
When Pastor Byron Brazier passes by the future site of the Obama Presidential Center, he already sees the glory of the South Side, he said.
There’s the palace-like Museum of Science and Industry building, its lofty Greek columns and jade-colored dome reflecting in the lagoon. The gothic towers of the University of Chicago’s leafy campus. And the 550 acres of Jackson Park teeming with wildlife and green land — and where he is patiently waiting for the 235-tall, sprawling Obama center complex to one day stand.
“The assets that are on the South Side that had been overlooked will now be recognized,” Brazier said about one of the significances of the center.
Not so fast, say opponents such as Herb Caplan, president and founder of the Protect Our Parks nonprofit that sued to try to block the center.
“Like it or not, public land is protected and needs to be expanded, not curtailed,” Caplan said.
Brazier, pastor of the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, however, is part of a band of community leaders who for years have been closely monitoring the progress of the Obama Presidential Center, planning around how its launch could helprevitalize his South Side neighborhood. In 2016, former President Barack Obama had chosen the storied Jackson Park sandwiched between Lake Michigan and Woodlawn as the site of his future presidential center, at the time scheduled to open in 2021.
“It is settled on the South Side of Chicago, which has not seen stimulus before,” Brazier said. “There’s a lot of excitement around what this could be and the impact it could have on our children and our children’s children.”
But four years of obstacles have stood in the project’s way, at times leaving supporters with dashed hopes as groundbreaking was delayed again and again. That included multiple federal reviews into the historic and environmental impacts of planting the center in Jackson Park as well as the Protect our Parks lawsuit challenging the city’s right to sell the public parkland.
Nonetheless, 2020 proved to be a fruitful year for the Obama center’s timeline. In December, two of the federal reviews concluded, and the lawsuit was quashed this summer. Supporters of the presidential center now cautiously say more than ever, the end — or rather, the beginning — is in sight.
“I don’t believe in forecasting when the actual time frame is going to start,” Russell Pike of the Jackson Park Highlands Association said. “We’ve come to this point somewhat disappointed that it took this long but ecstatic that we are at a point now where we can see light at the end of the tunnel.”
The roadblocks began with the decision to build the center in Jackson Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That location, as well the need to close and expand major adjacent streets, prompted a federal review in 2017 to evaluate the project’s effects on the historic properties. The review is known as “Section 106” and required under the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act. Two other federal processes, a National Environmental Policy Act review on the environmental impact and a “Section 4(f )” one on the project’s effects on protected parkland, also commenced.
In 2018 another hurdle went up, this time in the courts, when Protect Our Parks sued the city of Chicago to halt the project because it claimed officials did not have the authority to transfer public parkland to a private nongovernmental entity such as the
Obama Foundation.
This month, the Section 106 and Section 4(f ) federal reviews concluded, and the NEPA review is expected to also wrap up in early 2021. In August, a federal appeals court panel ruled the plaintiffs in the Protect Our Parks lawsuit did not suffer actual harm and that much of their grievances were not within the court’s jurisdiction.
The groundbreaking of the $500 million campus, which will include a museum telling the story of the nation’s first Black president, the Obama Foundation offices, a public library branch, an athletic center and an outdoor recreation space, was tentatively set for 2021.
Caplan said he has plenty of fight left and, among other things, plans to file a petition in the coming months for his lawsuit to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s a delusion,” Caplan said about the Obama Foundation’s hopes to break ground in 2021. “I think part of what they say is to create the appearance of building in Jackson Park being a done deal, whereas it’s far from being a done deal.”
Other issues giving opponents pause include Jackson Park Watch co - President Brenda Nelms’ concern that the blow the coronavirus pandemic has dealt on government budgets makes it a
fraught time for such an ambitious project. The Obama Foundation is on the hook for construction and running the center, but the state would pay for nearly $175 million in surrounding roadwork while Chicago’s Department of Transportation has allocated about $8.6 million to costs such as the Section 106 process’s mitigation efforts, a city spokeswoman said. There also could be future “miscellaneous costs” to the city, she said.
“What’s the best use of funds at this time, I think is something
important to consider,” Nelms said, adding that she believed the federal reviews were so far inadequate at preserving the park. “But yes, it’s Obama. So it’s hard.”
Erin Adams, president of the grassroots group South Side Neighbors for Hope that is in favor of the center’s location, isn’t too worried about the opposition. She said she believes the federal agencies’ handling of the reviews was ironclad and that Caplan’s legal challenge is merely “hot air” that had seen its day in court.
Adams said she has observed an enduring longing among neighbors for something monumental to uplift the South Side, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, and believes the Obama center is the right start. But she joked that for now, she’s still holding her breath on its arrival.
“I am not going to exhale complete relief until I see bulldozers out there starting to dig holes,” Adams said.