Barack Obama’s Fake ‘Library’ Balloons to Massive $700 Million Construction Costs

Like his two terms in the White House, the Obama Center has turned out to be a disaster

The Obama library — which isn't a library — has ballooned to a construction cost of more than $615 million, up from the original estimate of $300 million when the edifice was proposed in 2019.

As 2024 came to a close, the estimate had soared to $615 million, with the cost adding up to a whopping $615,674,047.

But according to the Chicago Tribune, other estimates have already placed construction costs past the $700 million mark.

Along with these massive cost overruns, the Barack Obama Presidential Center has had a very troubled history already, and it hasn’t even been completed yet.

Originally, the Obama Center was sold to City Hall and the Illinois General Assembly as a "privately funded" enterprise that would require no tax dollars. Nevertheless, that has since turned out not to be entirely true. After ground breaking and construction began, it became clear that the city and state would indeed be on the hook for the cost of rerouting streets and reconfiguring local mass transit lines to support the center. The cost is expected to come to at least $200 million in tax dollars to achieve all that, according to the Washington Examiner.

Other lies over costs associated with the Obama Center were sold to Chicago residents, as well. The first was the whopper the center would not cause harm to the federally protected Jackson Park in which it is being built. And many supporters of the park quickly launched a series of lawsuits against Barack Obama to stop the desecration of more than 20 acres of the park. Nonetheless, Obama’s people continued to claim there’d be no real harm done to the decades-old park.

However, many disagreed. Indeed, a study from 2020 issued by Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development claimed the center would have an “adverse” impact on Jackson Park’s Historic Landscape District and the city’s historic Park Boulevard System.

Another lie is that many originally called the thing Obama’s “presidential library.” But then people learned it was actually not being called the "Obama Library" because the complex won't house any of Obama's records, papers, or artifacts. All of the Obama material will be stored by the National Archives and will only be available at the Obama Center digitally.

Currently, most of Obama's records are stashed in a building in Hoffman Estates where it is all being digitized. But eventually it will all end up in a National Archives storage facility near Kansas City, Missouri.

The center has faced numerous other difficulties elsewhere. The opening has been delayed time and again. The latest missed deadline is approaching next month and it is now said it won't open until spring of 2026, according to WTTW.

On top of that, there has been the constant acts of breaking trust with Chicago's communities and conservationists.

One of the first examples of the Obama Center breaking trust with the residents was the unfulfilled promise not to immediately begin felling trees that were older than the city. In 2018, the center had agreed not to begin taking out the trees in Jackson Park while several lawsuits filed by conservationists wound their way through the courts. But, despite the promise, the center started destroying the ages-old trees anyway.

The actual design of the building is also spurring disgust over how ugly it is. Many are blasting the design as a "monstrosity" and an eyesore. Some have even said it looks like something the evil empire in Star Wars would build for the movies.

But perhaps more concerning, the center has become a threat to the residents in the area.

Local residents are being driven out of their homes by skyrocketing rent as landlords and real estate agents are seeing wealthier residents looking to move into the area thanks to the center.

"Rents are going up fast," said Kyana Butler of Southside Together, according to the New York Post.

“A two-bedroom apartment that used to rent for $800 a month has already jumped to $1,800. Property taxes are going up so much that the owner of my building is saying she might just walk away," she added.

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Butler went on to say that Obama's team "may not have the best intentions for people in this area. We’re all worried about the impact on the community."

Twentieth Ward Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor also blasted the center for the unfair impact it is having on the neighborhood:

"We’re going to see rents go high and we’re going to see families displaced. Every time large developments come to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for. This was no different, and we’re living what is actually happening. The city of Chicago should have done a Community Benefits Agreement before the first shovel went into the ground."

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Dixon Romeo, an organizer with the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, was another who slammed the center, saying: "When you got people’s rent going from $850 to $1,300 you’re telling people you don’t want them in the neighborhood."

Finally, supporters claimed that the Obama Center would be an economic boon for the city. But the big question is why was this economic boon not slated for the areas of the city that could use the lift? Why was the center not put in Hyde Park, or Pullman, or Grand Crossing? If this project was all about uplifting Chicago, why was it not put where it could have been more useful to the community?

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Featured image by TonyTheTiger CC BY-SA 4.0