Eyewatering financial records of Barack Obama’s ‘eyesore’ library

Barack Obama’s foundation center’s staggering $850 million cost has been fueled by soaring operational budgets and huge salaries for executives, a new financial report has revealed.

Construction of the former president’s namesake center campus has already surpassed the total budget set out when Obama first proposed the building before he left the White House.

Situated in the South Side of Chicago in Jackson Park, the towering grey monolith-like property will serve as the headquarters of the Obama Foundation and will house a museum, library and education center dedicated to his eight years as president.

It was initially estimated to cost $300 million, before the budget was revised to $500 million in 2017, and then again to $700 million in 2021.

In an annual financial disclosure form released last week, the foundation reported spending an extra $90 million to prepare exhibits and $40 million in operating costs for the first year alone.

Executives at the center raked in a total of $6.1 million and are among the best paid of all cultural centers in the nation, with CEO Valerie Jarrett paid $740,000 last year.

OPC Executive Vice President Robbin Cohen earned $610,195 and Tina Chen, the organization’s chief legal and people officer, earned about $425,000.

Although the cost of all artworks is not clear, the museum recently installed an 83-foot painted glass window by artist Julie Mehretu to its exterior to beautify the grey building’s exterior.

Despite the soaring costs of the site, fundraising to Obama’s foundation has stayed high and surpassed $1 billion thanks to a $195 million cash injection last year, the foundation said in its recent financial report.

Barack Obama’s foundation center has cost upwards of $850 million as critics slam the construction as an eyesore in Chicago’s skyline

Situated in the South Side of Chicago in Jackson Park, the property will serve as the headquarters of the Obama Foundation and will house a museum, library and education center dedicated to Barack and Michelle’s eight years in the White House

Obama’s center is finally set to open in the spring of 2026 following years of delays and legal challenges, including Chicagoans who have slammed the ‘ugly’ construction for pushing up rents and displacing locals.

Associates of the former president announced that they will begin community tours of the center later this month to boost its image among residents, saying the tours will help them to ‘begin to imagine how they will use and enjoy’ the center.

The financial report detailed how the construction of the building has ramped up, including $27.5 million on programming for scholarships and youth engagement programs.

Critics have slammed the construction as an eyesore in Chicago’s skyline, with residents saying it has been doing more harm than good for the community in recent years.

Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents much of the area where the center is being built, told the Daily Mail last month that she is a fan of Obama and believes in the project but has fought aspects of it to protect her constituents. Her efforts have had mixed results.

‘We’re going to see rents go higher and we’re going to see families displaced,’ she told the Daily Mail.

Obama supporter and alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents much of the area where the center is being built, told the Daily Mail that the project will likely drive up rent prices and push families out

Some locals have criticized developers for taking away their park (pictured in 2020 before construction) without any input from the community on the plans for the new development in its place

An aerial view from August 14 shows ongoing construction where the athletic field once was

Although the cost of all artworks is not clear, the museum recently installed an 83-foot painted glass window (pictured) by artist Julie Mehretu to its exterior to beautify the grey building’s exterior

‘Every time large development comes to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for,’ the Democrat added.

Locals have said the building resembles a ‘concrete tomb’, ‘a totalitarian command center dropped straight out of 1984’, ‘a monument to megalomania’ and ‘a giant trash can’.

Workers on the center blame policies and lengthy DEI sessions for the delayed construction.

‘It was all very woke from the time they broke ground in 2021,’ a construction foreman on the site told the Daily Mail.

‘Every so often a bunch of staffers from the Obama Foundation wearing little badges would come by the site and they’d ask us silly questions like, are you white, straight, gay, trans, whatever. It was ridiculous.’

Obama’s legacy project in Chicago has been beset with issues since the start such as ballooning costs and construction delays, and it has soared to over double its initial budget

Chicago residents and onetime supporters of Obama, including activist Ken Woodard (pictured) say the former president’s $850 million initiative is doing more harm to the community than good

Allison Davis of Aquinnah Investment Trust, who has close ties with Obama, plans to build a 26-story, 250-room luxury hotel just down the street from the center.

And Taylor said ‘$300,000 and $400,000 homes that nobody can afford’ are already popping up around the area on Chicago’s poverty-stricken South Side.

Taylor is not the only critic.

‘It looks like this big piece of rock that just landed here out of nowhere in what used to be a really nice landscape of trees and flowers,’ Ken Woodard, 39, a lawyer and father of six who grew up in the area told Daily Mail. ‘It’s a monstrosity.

‘It’s over budget, it’s taking way too long to finish and it’s going to drive up prices and bring headaches and problems for everyone who lives here.

‘It feels like a washing away of the neighborhood and culture that used to be here.’

A rendering of The Obama Presidential Center. The facility won’t open until April 2026 after its original opening date of 2021 was pushed back several times, with the cost ballooning from $350 million to $830 million

Tyrone Muhammad (pictured), a South Side native, director of Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change and a 2026 Illinois Senate candidate, was among the first to raise the alarm about the project back in 2020

Tyrone Muhammad, a South Side native, director of Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change and a 2026 Illinois Senate candidate, was among the first to raise the alarm about the project back in 2020.

‘To me it’s truly the Tower of Babel,’ Muhammad said.

‘There’s a lot of babbling going on with the Obama Center that never seems to get to anywhere. It’s disconnected from the community it says it wants to serve. There’s this ongoing battle around it that involves policies that never serve or effect change for the community.’

Muhammad called it ‘disingenuous’ and ‘hypocritical’ to take park space away from people and then not involve them in what takes its place.

The move ‘violates common decency’, he said.