If a tree falls in Jackson Park these days, you can bet it’ll be noticed.
It will instead be a museum, community hub (with gym and auditorium), and training center for political leaders, both local and international. It’ll include a library, but nothing like a National Archives-managed research facility. Instead, according to an agreement reached this spring, it’ll house a 5,000-square-foot Chicago Public Library branch in a rent-free space leased from the Obama Foundation and staffed by CPL.
Last week the Obama Foundation issued its first annual report, revealing that the foundation raised $232 million in 2017, spent $22 million on operations and programs, and at the end of the year had net assets of $224 million. That is, less than half of what it’ll probably take just to get the buildings up.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has labeled the lawsuit “frivolous,” and the city argued in court that it was premature because the land lease arrangements weren’t yet final (and won’t be until the city passes a new ordinance, which it expected to introduce in July). Also, the city claimed, no Obama Center construction was yet happening in Jackson Park. U.S. district court judge John Robert Blakey accepted that rationale and put the suit on hold.
And Caplan wants to make one other thing clear: “The object of the lawsuit is not to prevent the Obama Center from being constructed. Our objective is just to relocate it out of the public park and into any of the nearby areas that are in need of investment.”
