CHICAGO, June 14 (Our Illinois Times) — The Obama Foundation’s long-term financial safety net for the Obama Presidential Center is facing new scrutiny because public records cited in national reporting show only $1 million in the center’s endowment, while subcontractors say they are owed large sums for work on the Chicago project.
The records do not show that the foundation violated its city agreement. The 99-year deal with the City of Chicago gave the foundation control of a 19.3-acre section of Jackson Park for a one-time payment of $10. The agreement required the creation of an endowment, according to descriptions of the city pact, but did not set a dollar amount.
That distinction is central to the dispute. The $470 million figure often linked to the endowment appears in the Obama Foundation’s own 2020 annual report, which said: “$470M of our fundraising goal will go toward seeding an endowment that will sustain Obama Foundation activities and the operations of the OPC for generations to come.” The figure also was discussed during public deliberations over the project, according to reporting on the city approval process.
But the foundation’s publicly available filings, as described by Fox News, show the foundation put $1 million into the endowment in 2021 and that the balance remained largely unchanged in the most recent filings reviewed. By the September 2021 groundbreaking, when Barack Obama and Michelle Obama appeared at the site, the endowment stood at $1 million, about 0.2% of the $470 million figure cited in the 2020 annual report.
The Obama Foundation has said it is complying with the city agreement because the pact required an endowment but did not require a specific target. The foundation also said the center itself is funded.
“On the eve of our Grand Opening celebrations, we are pleased to reiterate that the Obama Presidential Center is fully funded with generous private contributions,” the foundation said in a statement quoted by Fox News. The foundation has also said it plans to make “significant investments” in the endowment in coming years.
The question is not only whether the foundation met the letter of its city agreement. The business issue is whether the center’s reserve plan, cash position and pledges are enough to support a project whose costs have grown while some subcontractors allege they have not been paid in full.
Construction costs for the Obama Presidential Center rose from an original estimate of $330 million to at least $850 million, according to Fox News’ description of the foundation’s 2024 tax filings. The same records showed the foundation had spent more than $615 million building the center as of the latest cited filings.
At the end of 2024, the foundation reported $116.5 million in cash, down nearly $80 million from the prior year, while still owing about $234 million in construction costs, according to the foundation’s latest tax return as described in the reporting. The remaining funding picture included $216 million in firm pledges and $201 million in conditional pledges. The foundation also had a $250 million revolving credit facility it had not drawn on, though the facility carried annual fees.
The foundation’s own 2021 documents, cited in the reporting, estimated that first-year operating costs for the center could reach about $40 million. That estimate gives context to the endowment question: the reserve was described by the foundation in 2020 as a fund meant to sustain foundation activities and center operations for generations.
Contractors have raised a separate but related concern: cash flow on the project now.
Mike Owen, president and owner of Adamson Plumbing, told Fox News that his company was still owed nearly $4 million for work performed on the Obama Presidential Center. Owen provided company spreadsheets to Fox News and attributed the losses to rework, delays and more than 100 change-order requests, according to the report.
“It’s still sitting at the $1 million mark [where it stood] when they opened it up,” Owen said, referring to the endowment balance.
Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association, told Fox News that several Black-owned contractors were in financial difficulty because of the project. The materials reviewed for this article did not include court filings, lien records or contract documents that would independently establish the full amount owed across all subcontractors.
The financial questions also extend to public spending tied to the center. The Illinois Department of Transportation said about $229 million in infrastructure spending was tied to the site, up from an earlier estimate of about $174 million, according to data the agency provided to Fox News. Chicago officials had not produced a reconciled total showing how much city taxpayers had committed or how current spending compared with the roughly $175 million discussed when the project was approved, according to the same reporting.
