University of Illinois at Chicago has unveiled its proposal to host the Obama Presidential Library, detailing a two-site plan that would bring a library, a museum, new green space and a visitors' center to the city's West Side. Under the proposal, a vacant, 23-acre site in North Lawndale would host the library and a museum, in addition to a park and a new bike trail. The city has approved the donation of the land and Mayor Rahm Emanuel has pledged to work to reopen the abandoned CTA Blue Line's Kostner station if UIC's proposal is accepted. The second component of UIC's proposal would bring a visitor's center and an academic center called the "O-4 institute" to the school's Near West Side campus.
The most puzzling part of the proposal (a rendering is pictured above) depicts portions of the visitors center and its accompanying green space being built over the Jane Byrne Interchange, at the intersection of the Kennedy, Dan Ryan and Eisenhower expressways. While the proposal is visually stunning, it seems strange to suggest building over one of the nation's biggest bottlenecks, which is already in the midst of a four-year, $420 million rehabilitation. Furthermore, while the city certainly needs additional green space, visitors may not want to spend time in a park suspended above the highly-trafficked intersection of three busy highways.
A rendering of UIC's proposed Obama Presidential Library campus in North Lawndale. Courtesy of the University of Illinois at Chicago
The plan also calls for the Obama Presidential Library to be connected to the lakefront Museum Campus via a rapid transit bus line that would run along Roosevelt Road. The proposal doesn't go into detail about the bus line, but one could assume that it will be met with a similar amount of community resistance as the currently stalled Ashland Bus Rapid Transit project.
UIC isn't the only Chicago college that submitted a proposal to host the Obama Presidential Library—the University of Chicago (near Obama's family home in Kenwood) offered up three potential sites near Washington Park, Jackson Park and the South Shore Cultural Center. Columbia University in New York (Obama's alma mater) and the University of Hawaii have also submitted bids to host the library. The Barack Obama Foundation will announce its decision about the library's location early next year.