Debate over using parkland for Obama Presidential Library

In Chicago’s quest to land the Barack Obama Presidential Library, a fight is brewing over whether South Side parkland—specifically Washington Park or Jackson Park—should be offered up as part of a library campus.

The University of Chicago has proposed using 21 acres of Jackson Park where a track, artificial turf field, swings and baseball diamond sit on the park’s west side. The Washington Park site includes 22 acres of park property with a playground and trees plus 11 acres owned by the university and CTA near the Garfield Green Line stop. The university estimated buildings would take up 10 acres or less on the campus site.

“This is an historic opportunity to bring a presidential library to South Side of Chicago, not just any presidential library but the first African American president in the history of the country to our community, to be a beacon of opportunity and hope for our kids and for all those in our community,” Derek Douglas, vice president of civic engagement at the University of Chicago, said at a Jackson Park Advisory Council meeting on Monday night.

The two sites are the topics of public hearings scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Hyde Park Academy High School, 6220 S. Stony Island Ave., and noon on Wednesday at Washington Park field house, 5531 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., hosted by the Chicago Park District to solicit input from residents. The process already has pitted park preservationists who oppose placement of the presidential library in a park or public open space against community leaders and residents who support bringing the library to the South Side even if it means making parkland available because of the economic impact it could have.

The Obamas will ultimately decide where the library will go but the University of Chicago faces competition from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Columbia University in New York and the University of Hawaii.

Most of the 40 people who attended Monday’s Jackson Park Advisory Council meeting supported building the library on the South Side but debated whether the parks should be potential locations for the library.

“These two parks are a unique, irreplaceable resource and once we break them open and they’re gone, they’re gone forever. It’s not like we can go get another Washington Park or another Jackson Park,” Dave White, 56, who lives in Hyde Park, said at the park meeting.

“It’s up to us to guarantee these parks are preserved, conserved for the next generation,” he said.

Losing park space is a real concern but so is losing the library bid, said Arnold Randall, the general superintendent of the Cook County Forest Preserve District who grew up two blocks away from Washington Park. He now lives within walking distance of both parks and also is a former park district employee and worked on Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid.

“I think there has to be a very, very high bar for putting things in the parks that are not there today…. A thing like a presidential museum for the first African American president meets that,” he said at the Jackson Park meeting. “It would be a travesty if that presidential library was not here on the south side of Chicago.”

Douglas said the university’s guiding principles in selecting sites were that the library go in a neighborhood where it could be an economic catalyst and that the library not require the displacement of a large number of people. Those principles and desire to present a plan for a campus of 20 to 25 acres led to the two controversial sites.

The university has touted economic benefits of 3,000 construction jobs and 800,000 annual visitors among others.

“It’s like we have to give up our parks or nothing,” said Angela Ford, 50, who lives four blocks from Washington Park.

Bringing a presidential library to either of the sites could trigger investment and restoration of the parks, Douglas said. The university also recommended the library plan be “park positive,” meaning if any land is taken for the building that would result in more parkland and open space.

“This is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us as Chicagoans, for us as South Siders to come together to make the case to the President and First Lady that this is where the library belongs,” Douglas said.

Friends of the Parks, a non-profit organization that promotes open spaces, said the city cannot afford to lose any more green space especially when it is behind on goals to have two acres per 1,000 residents by 2010 in each community area. Both sites made it to its top 10 watch list of endangered parks and open spaces. The group opposes putting the library in a park but supports the UIC proposal and building the library on 11 acres near Washington Park that isn’t parkland.

“Where is the university’s responsibility as an institutional partner in this neighborhood to listen to what everyone here is saying about not in a park and say, ‘President and Mrs. Obama this is something that is Chicago’s decision. We want to support you. We want you here. We will do what we can to accommodate you here but we’ve heard from the people. Parkland is not for sale,'” Cassandra Francis, president of Friends of the Parks, said at Jackson Park.

But Douglas countered that her view wasn’t shared by all residents.

“We’ve talked to many community residents who feel they want this library here desperately and if the President and First Lady want the park, to use some of the park, a small portion of park, to do that,” Douglas said.

Twitter: @lvivanco

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