Even before he left office in January 2017, President Barack Obama had laid grand plans to build a presidential library on the South Side of Chicago. As early as 2015, the Chicago City Council (and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff from 2009 to 2010) announced that “the City defers to the sound judgment of the President and his Foundation as to the ultimate location of the Presidential Library.” Obama ultimately decided to build on 19.3 choice acres in historic Jackson Park, designed in 1871 by great American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. By that time, Obama’s “library” designation had been ditched because federal law imposes strict limitations on the size of presidential libraries. Freed of thosose restrictionss, the Obama Foundation unveiled a new plan with a 235-foot tower, joined by three other buildings. The Foundation claims that its new complex, the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), will generate huge economic returns to the city. But don’t bet on it. The Jackson Park site is landlocked, and the nearby land is fully occupied. If the larger Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry didn’t transform the South Side, neither will the OPC. …

Before the work commenced, public estimates put the OPC’s cost at an estimated $350 million in 2018. That figure crept near $500 million by 2020 and $700 million by June 2021, shortly before the city transferred the construction site to the Obama Foundation. Since then, the foundation has not released any new cost estimates, nor has it updated its time of completion. But its 2020 Annual Report estimated that it needed close to $1 billion in new funds to finish construction and cover the costs of maintenance, operation, and improvement of the structure. With little money in the bank, the foundation saw total fundraising shrink from $171 million in 2020 to $159 million in 2021, well below the 2017 high of $232 million. The OPC could end up underwater both physically and financially, which is why the 2021 Annual Report does not mention these touchy funding issues.