Group suing over Obama Presidential Center construction in Chicago dealt legal setback in effort to halt groundbreaking

CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday denied a request to halt construction on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago — stifling the latest attempt by a group that has long opposed the upcoming site’s location in the storied Jackson Park on the South Side.

Judge John Robert Blakey of the Illinois Northern District court issued the decision after hearing arguments last month on the legal challenge by the nonprofit Protect Our Parks, which filed its second lawsuit attempting to stop the planned location of former President Barack Obama’s presidential center.

Blakey’s denial Thursday of a preliminary injunction marks a significant setback to the park’s advocates, and helps clear the way for the Aug. 16 groundbreaking of the $700 million center. The center is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025.

“While we are certainly disappointed in the Court’s decision, we will review the full opinion and explore all available options, including immediately filing an appeal and seeking relief from the appellate court,” a spokesperson for Protect Our Parks said in a statement Thursday. “In addition, we will continue to vigorously pursue and present our arguments in court in the coming weeks.”

In his ruling, Blakey did not issue an opinion on the motion by defendants — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the city, the Obama Foundation and others — to dismiss the lawsuit filed in April, the same day that preconstruction roadwork began.

Buttigieg and other federal government officials were listed because of their departments’ involvement in reviewing the impact of construction in Jackson Park.

Thomas Merrill, a law professor at Columbia University, said the second lawsuit has a much stronger legal standing than the first, but time may be running out for the plaintiffs once the preliminary injunction motion is tossed.

”There’s a sort of common intuition among lawyers that if you can get the shovels in the ground and get the project started, the courts are going to be much less likely to intervene and declare it impermissible,” Merrill, who co-wrote the book “Lakefront: Public Trust and Private Rights in Chicago” with Marquette Law Professor Joseph Kearney, said in a phone interview last month.

A spokesperson for the Obama Foundation said in a Thursday statement: “We have appreciated the voices of the many leaders who weighed in on this issue with the court to move the Center forward as the city focuses on its recovery efforts and steps to build a more inclusive economy.”

Spokespeople with the city and Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Over the summer, the two sides sent a flurry of briefs ahead of Blakey’s ruling, with the foundation’s lawyers condemning the lawsuit as an “eleventh-hour” obstruction that would damage their ability to collect donations after what they described was a thorough vetting process for the Jackson Park location.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs have pushed for an alternate site in Washington Park and argued the current planned location would snarl traffic and cut down trees.

Brenda Nelms, co-president of the Jackson Park Watch group that also opposes the Obama center’s proposed location, said she was “disappointed” Thursday but maintains her stance that the lawsuit raises legitimate grievances with the federal review process.

”The first thing to consider is alternatives. Take a hard look to see if there are any alternatives that would avoid whatever damage is to be done,” Nelms said. “And that step was completely skipped over, ignored, whatever.”

In 2016, Obama announced that Jackson Park, sandwiched between Lake Michigan and Woodlawn, would be the destination of his future presidential center, at the time scheduled to open in 2021. His choice was heralded by supporters who hoped the project would help revitalize neighboring communities and become a source of pride for South Side residents and visitors alike — and condemned by preservationists who did not want to see the sprawling campus take over the park designed in 1871 by Frederick Law Olmsted.

The campus will include a museum, Obama Foundation offices, a public library branch, an athletic center and an outdoor recreation space. Its opening initially had been set for this year, but almost five years of obstacles have stood in the project’s way.

The roadblocks began with the Obamas’ decision to build the center in Jackson Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That location, as well as the need to close and expand major adjacent streets, prompted a federal review in 2017 to evaluate the project’s effects on the historic properties. The review is known as “Section 106” and required under the 1966 National Historic Preservation Act.

Two other federal processes — a National Environmental Policy Act review on the environmental impact and a so-called “Section 4(f)” examination of the project’s effects on protected parkland — also commenced. That NEPA review wrapped up in February, following the conclusion of the Section 106 and 4(f) reviews.

The crux of Protect Our Parks’ complaint is that under regulatory statutes, federal agencies should have considered relocating the proposed Obama center site entirely to avoid damage to the environment, according to the lawsuit. The city and Obama Foundation officials have said federal agencies closed the final review into the project because they determined the Obama center’s construction and nearby roadway fixes would not pose a “significant impact” on the environment — a finding the lawsuit says is “faulty.”

The first legal challenge from Protect Our Parks started in 2018 when the nonprofit sued the city of Chicago to halt the project, asserting that officials did not have the authority to transfer public parkland to a private nongovernmental entity such as the Obama Foundation. A federal appeals court ruled in August that the plaintiffs did not suffer actual harm and many of their grievances were not within the court’s jurisdiction.

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