Brace yourself for a jaw-dropping price tag: the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has ballooned to a staggering $850 million, nearly triple its original estimate.
Daily Mail reported that this ambitious project, spearheaded by the Obama Foundation, aims to honor Barack and Michelle Obama’s White House legacy with a museum, library, and education hub in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side, but it’s mired in skyrocketing costs, community backlash, and endless delays.
Back when the idea was first floated, the cost was pegged at a modest $300 million, a figure that seemed ambitious but doable before Barack Obama left office.
By 2017, that estimate crept up to $500 million, then surged to $700 million by 2021, and now sits at an eye-watering $850 million, dwarfing even the most generous early projections.
Construction didn’t even break ground until 2021, delayed by legal battles and what some call excessive focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion sessions that slowed progress to a crawl.
“It was all very woke from the time they broke ground,” grumbled a construction foreman to the Daily Mail, highlighting frustrations with staffers’ intrusive questions about personal identities—a distraction from the actual work, if you ask many on the right.
Originally slated to open in 2021, the center’s debut has been pushed to spring 2026, a delay that’s only fueled the cost overruns and local discontent.
Residents of the South Side, already grappling with poverty, aren’t rolling out the welcome mat, decrying the project as a “concrete tomb” or “giant trash can” that’s ruining Jackson Park’s once-serene landscape.
“It looks like this big piece of rock that just landed here out of nowhere,” lamented Ken Woodard, a local lawyer, to the Daily Mail, mourning the loss of trees and flowers—and he’s got a point when you see the grey, imposing design.
Financial disclosures paint a troubling picture: the Obama Foundation shelled out $90 million on exhibits and $40 million on first-year operating costs, while executives raked in $6.1 million combined, including a hefty $740,000 for CEO Valerie Jarrett.
Fundraising, though, remains a bright spot for the project, with over $1 billion raised, including a $195 million cash boost last year—proof that deep-pocketed donors still believe in the vision, even if locals don’t.
Meanwhile, a token $27.5 million went to scholarships and youth programs, a drop in the bucket compared to the lavish spending elsewhere, leaving conservatives to wonder if this is more monument than mission.
Locals like Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor aren’t mincing words, warning the Daily Mail, “We're going to see rents go higher.”
She added, “Every time large development comes to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for,” and it’s hard to argue when $300,000 homes—unaffordable for many on the South Side—pop up nearby, alongside plans for a luxury hotel by an Obama associate.
With community tours starting soon to polish the project’s tarnished image, and an 83-foot painted glass window recently added to soften the “eyesore” label, one has to ask: Can a little PR and pretty glass fix what feels like a fundamental disconnect from the neighborhood this center claims to serve?
