Site for Barack Obama’s presidential library chosen

In May, the Obama Foundation announced that the library would be built in the president’s hometown of Chicago, after the city beat out proposals by New York City and Hawaii.

The Obamas have picked the Woodlawn park as the site for the library over Washington Park, a source familiar with the situation said.

“The city of Chicago was instrumental in demonstrating to the President and First Lady the advantages of locating the future Obama Presidential Center in the city, and the University of Chicago brought to life the broad potential and vital energy of the South Side”, foundation chairman Martin Nesbitt said in a statement. Other neighborhoods around the park are already thriving. The city has also promised to update nearby Metra stations, improve street lighting, and widen bike lanes. One third of the land in Washington Park is vacant. The bid failed in 2009, and now, residents of this struggling area must live with a second major disappointment.

President Barack Obama’s library and museum appears to have found a home-and it’s not where you may have thought. Their last Chicago commission was the 170-foot-tall Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, which opened in 2012. Neighborhood activists, led by the Arthur M. Brazier Foundation, are also working on “an extensive revitalization plan”, according to the Tribune. The church is a major neighborhood anchor.

The site in Jackson Park proposed by the University of Chicago is 21 acres along Stony Island Avenue across from Hyde Park Academy, 6220 S. Stony Island Ave., and is now used for a football field and track and a playground. This could translate into as many as 30 restaurants, 11 stores and a hotel, the report found.