Halfway built, the Obama Presidential Center is already a South Side landmark

Since August 2021, the sprawling Obama Presidential Center complex has been taking shape in Jackson Park on what will be a 19.3 acre campus fronting on Stony Island Avenue and stretching from 62nd Street on the south to 59^th Street on the north.

For months, the rising tower — which will house the museum dedicated to former President Barack Obama — has been visible to the surrounding Hyde Park neighborhood, already tall enough to call it a South Side landmark.

On Monday when I visited, the concrete shaping and supporting the tower, which will be the center’s signature structure, was still about 85 feet shy of its ultimate 235-foot height.

Construction of the Obama Center, which is being financed and built by the Obama Presidential Foundation, is about at the halfway point.

When details of the project were made public six years ago, there was an estimate that the center could be completed by 2021. Federal reviews, which the initial planners did not fully take into account, took years to complete. Obama and former first lady Michelle were at the ceremonial groundbreaking in September 2021.

Lori Healey, the foundation’s senior vice president overseeing the construction, says the target date for completion is now October 2025.

What’s new

I learned two new things on this tour: which stone Obama picked for the tower façade, a major design decision; and how plans have changed for the conference and athletic center building, which will be bigger than originally planned.

Before entering the construction site, I walked around the neighborhood and could see how the still uncompleted tower looms over the community. Heading east on 63^rd, I passed the South Side YMCA and crossed Stony Island. There is a snazzy new Chicago Park District athletic field at 63^rd and Stony Island, across from Hyde Park Academy High School. It replaces the athletic field that was demolished to make way for the Obama Center.

Brian Ernst/Sun-Times

In front of the high school and for a stretch of Stony Island, construction crews were at work widening the street. The avenue is getting extra lanes to make up for closing the portion of Cornell Avenue that ran through Jackson Park — land now part of the Obama Center campus. Once completed, the center will be connected to the Museum of Science and Industry by a grand walkway on what was once Cornell.

Lynn Sweet/Sun-Times

A group of trailers and a giant tent occupy the south part of the site. Between 350 and 400 people are working on the construction at this stage, mainly ironworkers, cement mixers, carpenters and laborers. Construction is far enough along that “all these trailers will be gone this quarter,” Healey said. With cold weather coming, the aim is to use the garage this winter for needed inside space.

And it’s to the top of the garage that I’m headed, donning borrowed steel-toed shoes, a hard hat, plastic glasses and gloves.

The Obama Center will consist of four buildings. Construction is ongoing for the museum tower, a Chicago Public Library branch and a forum with an auditorium, recording studio, meeting places and an indoor winter garden. The Chicago library branch should not be confused with the official Obama Presidential Library, which is run by the National Archives and Records Administration and for now is in Hoffman Estates.

The fourth building will be built where the trailers and tent stand. That building will be a combined programs and athletic center, separate from the three other structures. It will have space for large conferences and be what the foundation calls the “recreational hub” of the south part of the campus since it will be adjacent to the new athletic field. The field is a short stroll away from the YMCA and high school, intended to be a resource for the community.

The design has changed since the project started. In May, the foundation announced that the gymnasium and other parts of the building would grow. Healey said the structure will now be 44,000 square feet, up from the original 28,000 square feet.  

The gym will have an NBA-regulation basketball court, not surprising since the hoops-loving Obama has a passion for basketball.

After climbing a makeshift staircase, I’m on top of the roof of the garage and looking north to the top of the library, forum and the tower, not yet at its full height.

Eventually, the roofs of the garage, library and forum — 2.3 acres in all — will be landscaped, park-like green space. One feature will be a fruit and vegetable garden, paying homage to Michelle Obama’s famous garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

The garage will hold 437 cars. Part of it is 25 feet below street level. Extensive shoring up and waterproofing was needed because the lower part of the structure is below the water table.

Standing on the garage roof, I see below the plowed outline of what will be the promenade and how it leads to the Museum of Science and Industry.

The landscaping plan calls for the creation of a great lawn and playground on the south side of the garage. Slopes for sledding hills will be created with landfill between the tops and sides of the three buildings flowing to the promenade.

From street level to the highest point on the library roof is 40 feet. Healey said the landfill will be a combination of geofoam and soil. Using geofoam reduces the amount of soil needed.

Healey said 40% of the square footage of the campus will be underground, clearing the way for street level access to the main plaza and other outdoor areas.

Obama Foundation

Obama Museum Tower details

The tower will be what people see first. It will have eight stories with four floors for the museum. I could see how the lower part is being prepared to accept the exterior stone that will cover the tower.

There has been, for years, curiosity over which type of stone Obama wanted to sheath the signature tower. Healey said Obama decided on a stone called “Tapestry” from a New Hampshire quarry. She described it as gray and white with flecks of brown, gold and pink.

The first stone was installed on Friday.

Obama Foundation

A major architectural detail on the exterior will be words from Obama’s speech marking the 50^th anniversary of the civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery.

Obama Foundation

Those letters, each 5 feet tall, will be made of high-performance concrete and are being fabricated at a shop in South Bend, Indiana.

The letters will be placed so that people looking out from the inside will be able to see the South Side and West Side through the letters.

The top of the tower will have the “sky room,” with sweeping panoramic views of Lake Michigan and the city.

I can see how each side of the tower is different. The shape, the foundation has said, “is inspired by the idea of four hands coming together, a recognition that many hands shape a place.”

Building “the tower is what drives our schedule,” Healey said, “because it’s an extremely complicated building to build. Because it has museum floors in it, you don’t want columns in the space. And so the structure of the building is entirely set on the exterior walls and the elevator cores.”

The National Archives and Records Administration owns all presidential papers and artifacts at the end of a presidency. The museum will feature Obama artifacts owned by the records administration, which has strict standards regarding the temperature and humidity of the places where its items can be displayed. 

That’s why, Healey said, “right now on our schedule, we have a dust-free date of Feb. 28 of 2025. The building has to run for a certain amount of time to be totally temperature- and humidity-controlled. After NARA signs off, the museum can start to install the artifacts.”

Also of interest if you are near the construction site are the signs on the fences surrounding the project. Each one explains a part of the center — who certain places are named for and why — and talks about the artworks, programs and other elements planned for the complex.

Lynn Sweet

Lynn Sweet