CHICAGO (AP) The Obama Foundation formally announced Friday that Chicago’s Jackson Park will be home to Barack Obama’s presidential library.
“Michelle and I are thrilled that the Obama Presidential Center will be developed in the heart of Chicago’s South Side, a community we call home and that means the world to us,” the president said in a statement. “With a center in Jackson Park, not only will we be able to affect local change, but we can attract the world to this historic neighborhood, whose rich cultural heritage dates back to the 1893 World’s Fair.”
The location, near the Museum of Science and Industry, beat an alternative site about a mile west in Washington Park. It’s also about 2 miles from the Obamas’ residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood.
Both park locations, which were designed by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, were chosen as finalists last year over bids by Columbia University in New York City, the University of Hawaii and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The foundation said Obama believed Jackson Park would have the greatest long-term impact.
The announcement confirmed the location that was revealed earlier this week to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the selection process who spoke on condition of anonymity because the individual wasn’t authorized to discuss the choice.
The Obamas announced last month that the library would be designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, a New York architectural firm that designed the David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago.
The complex in Jackson Park, which will contain the 44th president’s library, archives and foundation headquarters, is expected to be completed by 2021.
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Near the Museum of Science and Industry is a good choice. People will be able to visit two very important institutions that speak to the advancement of America.
Great. The park is where I played as a child, and the Museum of Science and Industry was the best experience a child could have. Good taste, Mr. President!
Todd Williams / Billie Tsien are great architects who will master the complex program for this building.
And the location is perfect. Can’t wait to visit.
What? You mean it’s not going to be in Obama’s birthplace, Kenya? The Donald will be incensed. (g)
Can’t he have more than one? A Hawaiian site would’ve been really incredible as well and that would help to justify the expense of going to Hawaii ; ) and from what I saw when I was there, Oahu could use the economic pick up in several places.
Plus, it would bug the hell out of the right that, while too embarrassed to still speak up about it, don’t believe the President was born in Honolulu Hawaii.