The project has been long delayed by legal challenges and the coronavirus pandemic.
Former president Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama marked the beginning of construction on the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s South Side Tuesday, more than five years after the controversial project was first announced. The news that Obama’s presidential library would head to Chicago was first announced in 2015, after Obama’s birthplace of Honolulu, Hawaii, was also considered, although Chicago was Obama’s first choice.
