The Obama Presidential Center will not provide the “promised development or economic benefits” to surrounding neighborhoods, the professors write and could cost more than $100 million in state funds.
Instead of building a presidential library for Barack Obama, the 44th president’s foundation will help fund a more-accessible digital archive of his records. This is the new model.
The center will sit near a lagoon that runs into Lake Michigan in the Jackson Park neighborhood and will feature three buildings – a museum, a forum and a library – as well as outdoor gathering spaces.
The Obama Center is due to be so expensive because it will require the construction of both a presidential library and a museum about the lives of Barack and Michelle Obama.
Though the Obama library fundraising effort will span the nation and possibly the globe, it's likely to hold special appeal to Chicago's philanthropists, said a local fundraising specialist.
Before the doors of President Barack Obama's library open on Chicago's South Side, truckloads of White House archives will be shipped to a former furniture store in the northwest suburbs.
“His magnanimous gesture boosts U of C’s chances of beating out Columbia Universityin New York to become the library’s home. A win would add new luster to the university’s already considerable prestige.”
“There are major concerns with the three potential sites in the University of Chicago proposal given the fact that neither the school nor the City of Chicago control the sites.”
