Maybe they can gild those invoices, huh?
This is turning into a bit of an awkward situation for the Obama Presidential Center, which isn't a library because the Obama Foundation didn't want any government oversight.
It's not a 'Library' - it's a 'Center' because the Obama Foundation didn't want the National Archives to have any say over anything they did.
— tree hugging sister 🎃 (@WelbornBeege) June 15, 2026
Weird, huh? https://t.co/kZpRm59M2B
Anyway, there is a really lovely picture of the Obamas that's just been unveiled. It's actually the first one I've seen that I like - they both look pleasant in it.
That's a nice touch and a refreshing change.
As for the Center itself, it opens this Friday, on the Juneteenth holiday.
That's okay, too. I get it.
The experience sounds as cozy as Obama himself, from the chilly, sandcrawler/Borg cube exterior to whatever the 'vision' is that dictated the interior.
And always the celebration of the exalted one whilst making the monies.
...They sought work that reflected values and issues the center focused on, questions of migration and resilience, the messiness of American life, the history of the South Side. Video installations, paintings, collage, photography. One of the artists, Lindsay Adams, graduated from the School of the Art Institute only last year. When Michelle Obama asked for a gallery for guest curators, 5,000 square feet of exhibition space was added on.
Indeed, as sincere as the Obama Presidential Center comes off, that ethos and messaging — “Working for the Common Good,” “Yes We Can” — is so woven throughout that it can seem at times almost indistinguishable from a chillier corporate branding.
The gift shop is what you expect. Obama coffee cups, magnets and books on the South Side. Except it also extends its language of empowerment — “Community,” “Empathy,” “Bring Change Home” — across merchandise shelves in almost satirically tone-deaf fashion. Is bringing home an Obama Presidential Center gym bag the same as bringing home change?
The money required to construct this edifice to one ego is still stunning, though.
...In 1990, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum decided to go private, opting out of the system — only to be so often accused of whitewashing Nixon, it requested 17 years later to join the National Archives system. “Supporters of an administration can find it difficult to embrace a balanced view of a legacy,” said historian Timothy Naftali, who became director of the Nixon library in 2007, “but even the best make mistakes.”
At $850 million, the Obama Presidential Center is also the most expensive presidential center by a mile — the second most expensive being George W. Bush’s, estimated to have cost $327 million.
That number, though, likely contributed to why there is no presidential library in the Obama Presidential Center. In 1986, eager to shift the burden away from taxpayers, Congress mandated that new presidential libraries raise an endowment equal to 20% of the cost, for future maintenance. In 2003, that went to 40%, and in 2008, to 60% — Obama became the first president required to raise an additional 60%.
It'[s going to be a big party when the doors open, but there are some people who were involved in the construction who might not have the thirty bucks to get a ticket to darken the doors.
It turns out there are many unhappy and unpaid contractors on this massive project, and a required endowment for future maintenance and repairs on behalf of the Obama Foundation of $470 million that has never once climbed above the initial $1 million deposited in the account years ago.
The Obama Presidential Center opens to the public on Chicago's South Side on June 19, the Juneteenth holiday, with a grand opening ceremony the night before. The 19.3-acre campus in Jackson Park houses a 225-foot museum tower, a digital library, an athletic facility, a café, conference space, a branch of the Chicago Public Library, and offices for the Obama Foundation, which will run the center as a private nonprofit.
The center cost roughly $850 million to build, nearly triple the original $300 million projection. Public infrastructure spending tied to the project has crossed $350 million by state and city transportation department figures alone, with no agency producing a final consolidated total.
A $470 million reserve fund the Obama Foundation pledged to seed for the center's long-term operations stands at roughly $1 million. Median rents in the neighborhoods near the campus have risen 43 percent and home values 130 percent since the center was first announced in 2015. Days before the opening, several Black-owned subcontractors who built the campus say they are owed millions and are fighting to keep their businesses open.
As part of the settlement with the city of Chicago after a long lawsuit to use the almost twenty acres of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed park with its beautiful lakeshore, the Obama Foundation agreed to finance the endowment.
In 2021, that first million dollars went into the kitty.
Concern is mounting that taxpayers could be left holding the bag if the Obama Presidential Center runs into financial trouble, as the foundation behind it has yet to establish a promised $470 million safety net to guard against a public bailout.
...Under its agreement with the city, the Obama Foundation pledged to create the fund, known as an endowment, as part of its 99-year deal to take control of the publicly owned 19.3-acre section of Jackson Park for a one-time payment of just $10.
Fox News Digital previously reported that the foundation had deposited just $1 million into the reserve fund in 2021 and that the balance remained largely unchanged in its most recent publicly available filings.
Concerns about the center’s financial state have raged for years, especially since construction delays and costs have ballooned from an original estimate of roughly $330 million to at least $850 million based on 2021 figures. An updated final projected cost has not been made public.
Endowment concerns
"One of their core promises was they were supposed to create an endowment as basically an insurance policy so the taxpayers wouldn’t get stuck with the bill," Illinois GOP Chair Robert Grogan told Fox News Digital outside the center last week as worker vehicles entered and exited the center.
"They promised hundreds of millions of dollars for it. It’s still sitting at the $1 million mark [where it stood] when they opened it up. So I don’t believe that they’ve kept that promise."
Some of the contractors are sitting on millions of dollars of unpaid invoices. To a small business, even a couple of thousand in arrears can pull you under.
There are many complaints of shabby treatment.
This fellow is owed over $4M for the plumbing work he's done in the building.
His documentation showed over 100 change orders, adding to his cost overruns.
...Outside the center last week, Adamson Plumbing President Mike Owen provided company spreadsheets to Fox News Digital, which he said showed that his firm is nearly $4 million in the red. He said that unnecessary rework, delays and more than 100 change-order requests left his company absorbing millions of dollars in additional costs.
"Subcontractors claim they're owed millions days before grand opening."
— Chicago Contrarian (@ChicagoContrar1) June 14, 2026
So the moral paragon, Barack Obama, stiffed contractors — in the millions — who completed work on the Obama Center?
We don't want to hear about Trump shortchanging contractors for their services ever again. pic.twitter.com/doKp2kMM1y
The head of the African American Contractors Association said his members were in dire straits from being stiffed so far on the project, too.
🚨 WOW! Black contractors are FUMING at Barack Hussein Obama saying they have NOT EVEN BEEN PAID for the abomination of a "library" set to open Friday in Chicago
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 14, 2026
"You can file that with 'you can keep your doctor.'" 😭
Construction costs surged to nearly a BILLION DOLLARS
"So… pic.twitter.com/IaVaANVG2l
..."So many of our black contractors are complaining they have not got their money. A lot of the black community and newspapers do not know."
What a disgrace!
I have to assume from their comments that it's not getting a lot of press attention in Chicago media circles. They probably don't want to mess up their invitation to the grand opening. It would cost $30 otherwise, and who's going to pay for that on an expense account these days?
This is not a good look, and it's only increasing the anxiety over the ability to pay for the 'center' in the long run.
Read:
— Michael Dorgan (@M_Dorgan) June 13, 2026
Obama Presidential Center's $470M safety net under scrutiny as subcontractors say they're owed millionshttps://t.co/4lDQHbVXws
Estimates are that it's going to be about $40 million a year to keep the doors open and lights on.
One has to sell an awful lot of $30 tickets to cover that electric bill.
The Center is also looking for unpaid help. You see, they've already got plenty enough pricey employees at the top.
The Obama Foundation is looking for 100 unpaid volunteers to work alongside the former president's highly paid cronies at the $850 million Obama Presidential Center in Chicago when it opens in June.
Officials are pitching the no-paycheck gigs as rooted in former President Barack Obama’s legacy of civic engagement. The recruitment campaign comes after Fox News Digital reported that the organization’s CEO, former top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, was paid $740,000 in 2024.
Foundation officials told Fox News Digital the volunteers will complement about 300 full- and part-time employees at the long-delayed center, which the organization is promoting as a $3.1 billion economic catalyst for the Windy City's South Side.
Why are there no pallets of cash available when you really need?
The Obama Presidential Center was meant to lift up local contractors. Some are now fighting for survival. https://t.co/P71SMZSlxn
— Crain's Chicago Business (@CrainsChicago) June 12, 2026
The promise from the Foundation about the Center is that it's going to be a $3.1B-a-year draw for Chicago.
Chicago, it’s good to be home!
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 15, 2026
Michelle and I built the Obama Presidential Center to be a place where people of all ages can learn, play, and work – and we can't wait to welcome you all later this week! pic.twitter.com/wQBUwy4zT6
It's what they're paying Jarrett for and what the lapdog media is going to gush over for the next week. Gird your loins.
MS Now it’s not talking about the UFC event last night. They’re pushing Obama’s garbage can. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Ap5urRNkPs
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) June 15, 2026
Anyway. You know what they say - promises, promises.
Or is it, 'promises were meant to be broken'?
It might be hard to tell for a while here, but so far, it's not starting off on the best foot.
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