Fate of Obama Presidential Center could be determined by outcome of Tuesday hearing

In what could determine the fate of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, a federal judge will hear final arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by environmentalists against the city that challenges whether the sprawling campus can be built in a public park.

“I’m all in favor of this investment on the South Side,” said Herbert Caplan, president of Protect Our Parks, the group that filed the lawsuit seeking to stop the center from being located in Jackson Park. “I’ve argued that the South Side would be better served if the OPC were built in another community like Woodlawn and South Shore.”

Caplan’s group argues in its lawsuit that the city doesn’t have authority to offer public parkland to a private foundation for the $500 million project. The city has asked the judge to throw the lawsuit out, arguing that while the Obama Foundation will pay to construct the buildings and improve the landscaping, the campus will be owned by the city and will remain public property.

The legal matter is reminiscent of the court battle that scuttled the $400 million museum proposed elsewhere on the lakefront by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas. In that case, a different parks advocacy group sued, but Lucas and his team didn’t wait for a judgment and decided to move the Museum of Narrative Art to Los Angeles.

[ Column: 'No Drama Obama' is in a legal box of his own making, but his planned Jackson Park presidential center remains alive ]

From the moment former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama announced their presidential center plans, they’ve said the project would transform the South Side by attracting a steady stream of tourists, providing jobs and giving new investors incentive to build housing, retail businesses and services to a community marred by poverty, joblessness and violence.

Unlike other presidential libraries that are mainly research facilities housing archives and records, the proposed Obama center would have a public library branch, an athletic center, a museum, meeting rooms and a number of outdoor gathering spaces, including a sledding hill. The campus honoring the first African American president would take up 19.3 acres of the 500-acre Jackson Park and is expected to create indirectly about 2,500 permanent jobs.

But while the development had the support of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel and won two affirmative votes by the City Council, it has also revealed deep and sensitive community divisions along racial and class lines.

The main backers of the lawsuit are two white residents: Caplan, a North Side resident, and Charlotte Adelman, who lives in the north suburbs. Caplan said the group has paid more than $100,000 in attorney’s fees for the suit.

They want the center to be placed on privately owned vacant property farther southwest in a more desolate area.

Many Chicagoans who live closer to the proposed Jackson Park site, however, have other worries: that it will drive up property values, making the area less affordable, and that nearby residents will be passed over for the higher-paying jobs the Obama center will generate.

Last week, hundreds of people gathered at Hyde Park Academy to renew the call for the project to come with a so-called community benefits agreement: an ordinance that would guarantee local benefits like a property tax freeze and a community trust fund that would pay for home repairs and rental assistance programs.

Unlike those behind the lawsuit, the residents at this gathering were not focused on trying to relocate the center but on getting assurances that longtime, lower-income renters, elders and homeowners nearby won’t be involuntarily displaced by rising housing costs.

“We were proud that President Obama chose the South Side for his presidential center,” Devondrick Jeffers of Southside Together Organizing for Power, or STOP, told the gathering. But he said those pushing for a community benefits agreement have been asking important questions from the beginning, like what will be the effect on rents and property, and will there be displacement?

David Stovall has lived for seven years in Woodlawn, the neighborhood adjacent to the proposed center site. He said he’s already seen a rise in his property taxes and heard his neighbors complain about increased rent. He doesn’t support the lawsuit, which he said focuses on the impact on green space and migratory birds. Instead, he’s concerned with protecting the stability of his majority-black community and keeping the housing available for lower-income residents.

“There are problems with the lawsuit,” said Stovall, a professor of African American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “It only questions if the Obama Foundation can build in the park. If the Obama Center provides concessions to protect this community, then I can support it. If it doesn’t, then I can’t get behind it. That’s the key negotiation point: What are they going to do for the people in this community?”

The Obama Foundation is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. Instead, it targets the city and Park District.

Construction on the center has been delayed by both the lawsuit and a federal review process that is months behind schedule. Still, officials at the foundation said they are optimistic about the project’s fate.

“At the Obama Foundation, we know that most people in the city and in the community are eager to see the OPC come to the South Side and we share that sense of urgency to advance this project,” said Michael Strautmanis, the foundation’s vice president for civic engagement. “We know (it) will have generational impact on this community.”

As the construction process has stalled, the foundation has moved ahead with programs that aim to shape the next generation of leaders.

The foundation has hosted workshops and summits and has nurtured a group of social entrepreneurs and scholars handpicked for a program at the University of Chicago. The foundation has continued its work with the My Brother’s Keeper program, which seeks to groom young men of color. Foundation officials also have continued to promote job fairs and apprentice programs through their team of contractors that are slated to build the facility.

[ As Obama Presidential Center comes closer to reality, tensions on race, class surface ]

When the center was first proposed, the former president made several surprise trips to Chicago, where he met with residents and stakeholders. Although he hasn’t made such an appearance in nearly a year, Obama continues to be deeply engaged in the project, officials with the foundation said.

The delays, especially the lawsuit, have frustrated some in the community who had hoped to see the center built by 2021.

The Rev. Leon Finney collected more than 5,000 signatures to support building the center in Jackson Park and has advocated for the development as an economic engine that could elevate the historically black community. Now he worries about how the lawsuit will influence the timeline and entire development.

“I think this is an ill-fated, ill-conceived lawsuit that is designed to delay the OPC in hopes that the (former) president will do what George Lucas did,” said Finney, of Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church. “In my judgment, the idea is to frustrate the process so the Obamas will fold their tent.

“They have no concern about us as a people,” Finney said about the environmentalists. “We all know they live in neighborhoods that have been invested in. I’ve been involved in this community since 1965 ... that’s 54 years … nothing I’ve done has done what this Obama (center) could do.”

In their court filings, the city’s lawyers have asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit. However, no community groups or elected officials have publicly demanded or pleaded for the legal action to be dropped by the environmentalists.

The foundation has said it wants to break ground this year. But with the lingering lawsuit and pending federal review process, no concrete date has been set. Officials with the foundation haven’t revealed an adjusted construction timeline.

They also haven’t said if they have a design prepared for another location.

The court hearing for the Protect Our Parks lawsuit is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. It’s not clear when the Judge Robert Blakey will issue his ruling, but at previous hearings he’s said he doesn’t want the case to drag on and intends to conclude it in a timely manner.

But while that ruling may close one chapter, it won’t be the end of the story.

“I know for certain if (the judge) rules against us we will file a notice of appeal immediately,” Caplan said.

lbowean@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lollybowean