Construction start TBD Cost $500m (Estimated) Website www.obama.org Named for Barack Obama | Completion date Approximately 2020 Management David Simas, CEO Founded 2020 | |
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Location Jackson Park, Chicago, Illinois Architecture firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Similar Jackson Park, Washington Park, Clinton Presidential Center, Midway Plaisance, Hutchinson Commons | ||
The Barack Obama Presidential Center is the planned presidential library of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States. The center will be hosted by the University of Chicago, and will be located in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. Once completed, it will become the 14th site in the National Archives and Records Administration's (NARA) presidential library system. The nonprofit Barack Obama Foundation was set up to oversee the creation of the Center and the building of its site.
Contents
Planning
The Barack Obama Foundation board consists of: Chairman Marty Nesbitt, a close friend from Chicago; J. Kevin Poorman, president and CEO of PSP Capital Partners; David Plouffe; Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng; venture capital financier, John Doerr; Studio Museum in Harlem Director and Chief Curator, Thelma Golden; fundraiser and former White House staffer, Juliana Smoot; investment managers John Rogers, and Michael Sacks, and former Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. Barack Obama has a home in Hyde Park.
The foundation was formally established in January 2014. Several organizations, including the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Hawaii, and Columbia University submitted proposals for the honor of hosting the institution.
In May 2015, the Barack Obama Foundation and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the Foundation and the Barack Obama Presidential Center would be located in Chicago's South Side and would be built in partnership with the University of Chicago. The selection of Chicago's South Side has broad local support for reasons of civic pride as well as of the economic development it would bring in the form of tourism and jobs, although the nonprofit group Friends of the Parks opposes the loss of parkland to build the library and has threatened a lawsuit to block development.
A design advisory committee assisted in the selection of the architects. Members of the committee included sculptor Don Gummer (the husband of actress Meryl Streep); Ed Schlossberg of ESI Design (husband of Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Japan); Fred Eychaner, a Chicago radio station owner and Democratic financier; and Architectural Digest magazine editor Margaret Russell. Seven architectural firms were announced as finalists in December 2015 from an initial list of 140 applicants: John Ronan Architects, Adjaye Associates, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, SHoP Architects, Snøhetta, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.
Two firms, New York-based Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Chicago-based Interactive Design Architects, were chosen in June 2016 to jointly lead the design and engineering of the center. For the exhibition design, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, which worked on the National Museum of African American History, will lead a team including, Civic Projects, Normal, and several local artists.
Two parks near the University of Chicago's South Side campus, Jackson Park and Washington Park, were considered. On July 29, 2016, the Foundation announced the selection of the Jackson Park site, across Stony Island Avenue from Hyde Park Academy High School. The park, designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, already houses the Museum of Science and Industry.
Construction and fundraising
Construction of the center is expected to be completed in 2020 or 2021. The architects said in February 2017 that construction of the center's library and museum would likely approach $300 million, and that the center would likely need an endowment of $1.5 billion. Obama did not do major fundraising for the center while still in office. In 2017, Obama reportedly was set to engage in a major fundraising effort for the center.