[1][12] The Obama Foundation board includes Chairman Marty Nesbitt, a close friend from Chicago; J. Kevin Poorman, president and CEO of PSP Capital Partners; David Plouffe; Obama's half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng; venture capital financier John Doerr; Studio Museum in Harlem Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden;[13] fundraiser and former White House Social Secretary Julianna Smoot; investment managers John Rogers and Michael Sacks; and former Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick.

[20] Kenvi Phillips was appointed as the inaugural director of the Barack Obama Presidential Library for a term beginning June 16, 2024.

[29] The 2014 bid revealed that the University of Chicago included various plans, such as combining the golf courses at South Shore and Jackson Park into a single "world class facility", and the closing of Cornell Drive and other streets in the vicinity of Jackson Park in order to improve the connecting green space for museums located in a nearby area known as "Museum Campus South".

[33] Both the former president and his wife Michelle Obama stressed the importance of Chicago's South Side as an influence in their own lives.

Members of the committee included sculptor Don Gummer (the husband of actress Meryl Streep); Ed Schlossberg of ESI Design (husband of Caroline Kennedy, the former U.S. ambassador to Japan); Fred Eychaner, a Chicago radio station owner and Democratic financier; and Architectural Digest magazine editor Margaret Russell.

[37][38] For the exhibition design, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, which worked on the National Museum of African American History, will lead a team including Civic Projects, Normal, and several local artists.

[39] The landscape architect is Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, with Site Design Group, and Living Habitats.

Jackson Park, designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, already houses the Museum of Science and Industry and a golf course.

[42] Preliminary plans were unveiled in May 2017, involving three buildings in geometric shapes covered in light-colored stone, roughly 200,000 to 225,000 square feet (18,600 to 20,900 m2).

These infrastructure changes would not be paid for by the Obama Foundation, and would require government funding,[44] expected to cost the city $175 million.

[52] An economic impact assessment estimates that about 28% of the 4,945 short-term construction jobs would go to South Side residents, with the remainder to the rest of Cook County.

[53] In July 2019, local aldermen Jeanette Taylor and Leslie Hairston introduced an ordinance aimed at protecting affordable housing near the development.

[54] The ordinance would require 30% of new units built in a 2-mile radius of the development to be affordable and offer right of first refusal for nearby tenants, among other benefits.

The compromise ordinance would require that 30% of units on 52 city-owned lots in Woodlawn be reserved for residents making between 30% and 50% of the Area Median Income, that any building refinanced through the Preservation of Existing Affordable Rentals program must reserve 10% of units for those making less than 30% of the AMI and 10% for those making less than 50% of the AMI, that the city's Housing Department request $675,000 in federal funds to support a local program to promote homeownership among current residents, and that eligibility restrictions be loosened for Woodlawn's Home Improvement Grant Program.

[56] The compromise was reached after negotiations between the administration, aldermen Taylor and Hairston, the CBA Coalition, and other community groups.

[58] The nonprofit group Friends of the Parks opposes the loss of parkland to build the center and had threatened a lawsuit to block development.

[65] Chicago mayor and former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel submitted two ordinances to the Chicago City Council on September 20: the first would grant the Obama Foundation a 99-year lease on the Jackson Park site for $10.00 with various restrictions on the foundation's use, in return for the foundation's financial responsibility for maintaining and operating the city-owned project; the second allows the city to plow under Cornell Drive from 59th Street to Hayes Drive in order to reconfigure this area as green space.

[66][67] The Chicago Department of Planning and Development (DPD) ordinance amended a 2015 agreement with the park district concerning the Obama Presidential Center.

[68] Under the new ordinance, the Presidential Center will comply with the Museum Act's free admission days requirements.

[68] The ordinance will also ensure that these parking fees may solely be used to finance the center's operations, maintenance, management, and endowment funding.

[68][69] On October 31, 2018, the Chicago city council unanimously approved the new proposals for the Obama Presidential Center.

[86] The independent campus student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon wrote an editorial in support of the center that criticized the concerns raised by some faculty.

[4] The papers and artifacts from the Obama administration are being stored and processed inside a secure facility located at 2500 W. Golf Rd[98] in suburban Hoffman Estates,[43] northwest of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

"In July, city officials negotiated a deal that will require developers to include affordable housing for projects on city-owned property in Woodlawn.