Last week, after a series of community meetings about the future of Jackson Park where some residents had been either shut out or effectively shut up, Fifth Ward alderman Leslie Hairston hosted an expanded ward meeting at the South Shore Cultural Center where everyone was offered the chance to talk.
The center includes a superfluous building. As designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, the center is to be a three-building complex grouped around a plaza—a bulky 180-foot tower that’ll house the Obama museum and two flat-topped one-story structures. One of those, the Forum, will be a public event space with an auditorium; the other, still referred to as the Library, is up for grabs. Obama Foundation strategist Jamie Clare Flaherty said it could house a new branch of the Chicago Public Library.
The public will likely be on the hook for infrastructure costs. The plans for the presidential center and, more significantly, for the golf courses call for the closure of major roads through the park, shoreline improvements, and construction of two underpasses. The online group Jackson Park Watch has suggested that those costs alone will equal or surpass the $30 million CPGA is citing as the price for the course changes.
