“Every day, all across this country, here in Chicago, working people are putting on their boots and their hard hat and they’re doing work, making things happen, and a lot of times we take it for granted,” Mr. Obama told the workers, adding that “hopefully for decades to come, every time people come by, they will be seeing a little bit of your work.”
Ernest Brown, the president of Brown & Momen, one of the contractors leading the construction, said the structure was being built to last, and “on the inside it’s just a spectacular space.”
“Because of Covid, it’s taken a lot of time to get certain materials, so we have to do a lot of planning, pre-purchasing, and it’s all coming together,” said Mr. Brown, who estimated that construction would continue for another year and a half.
Mr. Obama has outlined a vision for his center’s 19-acre campus that includes some of the usual trappings of presidential libraries, including a replica Oval Office and exhibits from his time in the White House.
But the plans also call for meeting spaces, a vegetable garden, a gym and a Chicago Public Library branch. Mr. Obama, who still owns a house on the South Side but spends most of his time in Washington, has described the facility not just as a museum, but also as a gathering place for people in the neighborhood and training ground for future leaders.
The Obama Presidential Center will not be an official presidential library nor be operated by the National Archives and Records Administration. Breaking recent precedent, Mr. Obama opted instead for a privately operated facility that would receive some artifacts on loan from the archives, an approach that has concerned some historians. The National Archives does operate what it calls its “first fully digital presidential library” about Mr. Obama’s tenure.
