Chicago residents and community leaders are voicing sharp concerns over Obama’s Presidential Center, warning that it threatens to erode the neighborhood’s character and accelerate displacement as luxury developments tied to the project push longtime families in the South Side out.
The Obama Foundation secured the 19.3-acre site in Jackson Park in 2018, landing a 99-year lease. At its center will rise a 225-foot brutalist concrete museum, pitched as the anchor of a broader revitalization effort. At the time, Foundation officials assured residents they had no intention of displacing families, insisting their goal was to strike a balance between spurring jobs and economic growth while safeguarding the community’s existing affordable housing. So far, that doesn't seem to be going well.
Residents speak out against Barack Obama Presidential Center
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) August 19, 2025
“It looks like a big piece of rock kind of right in the middle of what used to be Jackson park, full of lush flowers, trees, and just beautiful. And all of a sudden, here you've got this big monstrosity. It's over… pic.twitter.com/s7iEZRa9iY
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents much of the surrounding working-class neighborhood, told the Daily Mail:
Every time large development comes 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. We’re going to see rents go higher and we’re going to see families displaced.
She has fought to secure affordable housing around the site to blunt the displacement of longtime residents, winning a commitment that 30 percent of new units built on city-owned land be set aside as affordable. But many of her broader demands went unmet, chief among them a full Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), which would have required developers to guarantee protections like affordable housing, local hiring, and other safeguards to keep large-scale projects from pushing out the community they claim to uplift.
"The city of Chicago should have done a Community Benefits Agreement before the first shovel went into the ground, but they didn’t," she said. "We’re going to see small landlords having to raise the rent. Their property taxes are going up and we’re going to see development that is not inclusive to our community."
Steve Cortes, a longtime Chicago resident and former advisor to President Donald Trump, said that the monument was nothing more than "a monument to one man's ego."
👏 FROM KEN BLACKWELL: 🗣️👉 The Obama Presidential Library, under construction in Chicago, looks like a… (Fill in the blank.)
— ❤️🔥 𝓓𝓪𝓻 ❤️🔥 (@DameScorpio) July 28, 2025
I think it looks like a totalitarian command center dropped straight out of 1984.
You can’t make this up. This hulking, gray monolith doesn’t look like… pic.twitter.com/geS3CiFAWY
"Look at the Reagan Library," he said, "It's beautiful. This? There are almost no windows. What are they hiding? And this Brutalist cement look in a city known for its incredible architecture."
Residents’ chief concern centers on a proposed 250-room luxury hotel, which they argue would trigger the familiar cycle of gentrification. Once such a high-end project is approved, property values will surge, bringing in investors and developers who will eventually price out its historically working-class, majority-Black roots.
This is from a President who claimed to stand for the working man and represent hope for America.