By The Drill Down Staff
When most presidents leave office, they open a library. But President Obama made the unconventional decision to open a park and museum in an historic Chicago park.
It’s been a long time coming, but over four years after his leaving office, construction on the Obama Presidential Center finally began. On the latest episode of the Drill Down podcast, Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers explore Obama’s slow-burning fiasco that has seen costs swell and lawsuits filed.
President Obama is well-acquainted with budget overruns and delayed deadlines, but in this case it may be hard to pass the buck. His insistence that the Center be built in the South Side of Chicago, prompted by the University of Chicago, may seem fitting for him, as it is where he began his political career, but it hasn’t been an easy sell in the area. The chosen location, Jackson Park, is listed in the National Registry of Historic Places and this invited a lawsuit from local residents. The status of the lawsuit is pending, but the odds are long for the plaintiffs.
The Obama Presidential Center has also seen costs balloon from an already huge $500 million to over $800 million, with taxpayers on the hook for at least $100 million. The Center, in addition to the park and the 235-foot-tall museum, aims to function as a job center and cooking-education workshop. Defenders of the Center claim it could generate billions in revenue within ten years of completion, but critics find such claims dubious.
Despite the location being initially proposed by the University of Chicago, two hundred professors from the school have made their objections to the location official.
President Obama’s political career began in the South Side by working to unite a community disregarded by powers that be. But now he is acting much like the political barons he once sought to destroy.
