The Obama Presidential Center and the CBA That Wasn’t
Big promises, hard lessons and what Wichita should learn before the next major development arrives
Big development projects tend to arrive with two things:
Beautiful renderings that make fresh concrete look like paradise—and promises large enough to make everybody feel included.
Jobs. Opportunity. Investment. Affordable housing. A brighter future.
The phrase “community benefit” gets used so often that it can start sounding like background music.
But communities cannot live on background music.
We live on wages, rent, property taxes, business ownership, safe streets, strong schools and whether our children can still afford to live in the neighborhood after the ribbon gets cut.
That is what makes the story surrounding Chicago’s new Obama Presidential Center so important.
The Center is historic. It honors the nation’s first Black president on the South Side that shaped both Barack and Michelle Obama. Its campus includes a museum, athletic facilities, public gathering spaces, gardens and a Chicago Public Library branch.
It is also an approximately $850 million development planted inside historically Black neighborhoods already facing real-estate speculation and displacement pressure.
In other words, it is exactly the kind of project that can bring tremendous opportunity—and rearrange a neighborhood before longtime residents realize the furniture is moving.
First, It Is Not Quite an “Obama Library”
Most people call it the Obama Library. That is understandable, but technically incomplete.
The National Archives and Records Administration retains control of President Obama’s official records, with most access designed to be digital. The Obama Foundation privately operates the museum and broader civic campus.
That distinction may sound like trivia, but it matters.
This is not simply a government archive surrounded by a few exhibits. It is a major cultural, tourism and economic-development project expected to attract hundreds of thousands of people annually.
And wherever that much investment lands, somebody is going to benefit.
The real question is: Who?
The Community Saw the Train Coming
When the Center was announced for Jackson Park, many South Side residents supported the idea.
They were proud.
They were excited.
They also understood how development usually works in Black neighborhoods.
For decades, communities can ask for grocery stores, better transportation, investment, safer public spaces and stronger business corridors. The answer is often some version of, “We are working on it.”
Then a major institution announces a new project, and suddenly investors discover the neighborhood has potential.
Funny how that works.
Community organizations formed the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition and called for binding protections. Their demands included:
Jobs for residents of surrounding neighborhoods
Affordable housing and protection from displacement
Support for Black-owned and locally owned businesses
Investment in neighborhood schools
Accountability for the public and private institutions benefiting from the project
These were not demands against development.
They were demands for development without removal.
That difference gets lost whenever community members are described as being “against progress” simply because they ask where the progress is going—and whether they will still be around to enjoy it.
Here Is the Plot Twist
Despite years of organizing, the Obama Foundation did not sign a traditional community benefits agreement with the coalition.
That is the most important fact in this entire story.
A real CBA is generally a legally enforceable contract between a developer and a coalition representing the affected community. It defines specific obligations, reporting requirements and enforcement rights.
Chicago ended up with something different:
Voluntary community commitments made by the Obama Foundation
A housing-preservation ordinance passed by the City of Chicago
Both included meaningful ideas.
Neither gave the community the same direct enforcement power it would have received as a party to a binding contract.
That is the difference between someone promising to bring the plates to the cookout and having their name written next to “plates” on the official sign-up sheet.
One sounds sincere.
The other can be checked when they arrive empty-handed.
What the Obama Foundation Promised
The Foundation’s community commitments were substantial.
Among other goals, the Foundation pledged to:
Award half of its subcontracting packages to diverse businesses
Draw 35% of the construction workforce from targeted South and West Side communities
Invest $850,000 with workforce organizations to train 400 new apprentices
Break construction work into smaller bid packages so smaller firms could compete
Help workers overcome barriers involving transportation, tools, childcare and union expenses
Create community spaces and programs for young people, schools and local organizations
Support policies designed to help residents remain in their neighborhoods
These were not insignificant promises.
In fact, some of the workforce and contracting strategies were more aggressive than ordinary municipal requirements.
The Foundation also said it would hire independent diversity monitoring and regularly report progress.
That is the good news.
The caution is that voluntary commitments remain controlled largely by the institution making them. The community may apply public pressure, but it does not automatically possess contractual standing to demand performance.
A promise can be sincere and still be structurally weak.
The Housing Ordinance: A Victory With Fine Print
After sustained community organizing, Chicago adopted the Woodlawn Housing Preservation Ordinance in 2020.
The ordinance created or proposed several anti-displacement measures, including:
Reserving 52 city-owned vacant lots for affordable housing
A $1.5 million program to preserve affordable apartment buildings
A $500,000 neighborhood redevelopment initiative
An $8 million loan fund for housing development and rehabilitation
$1 million in home-repair assistance for longtime homeowners
Local hiring requirements for certain developments on city-owned land
A pilot right-of-first-refusal program intended to give tenants an opportunity to purchase their buildings before an outside sale
On paper, that sounds like a solid neighborhood shield.
Unfortunately, shields only work when somebody picks them up.
What Happened by 2026?
A 2026 investigation by the Illinois Answers Project found a mixed—and often disappointing—record.
Among its findings:
Of the 52 city-owned lots reserved for affordable housing, only one completed project had produced 58 apartments.
No applications were received for the $1.5 million rental-preservation program, and the money was reallocated.
The separate $500,000 neighborhood redevelopment allocation went unused.
The $8 million loan fund financed 40 units, with another 18 being rehabilitated or improved in 2026.
Thirty-six longtime homeowners received repair grants of approximately $20,000.
A local-jobs provision associated with one development produced three neighborhood hires.
The city did not enforce the tenant right-of-first-refusal pilot, and no landlord filed the required sale notice.
Altogether, $2 million dedicated to two housing programs went unspent.
Three of the ordinance’s seven programs never properly got off the ground.
Meanwhile, housing became more expensive. Research cited in the investigation found that prices for homes on the eastern side of Woodlawn, nearest the Center, had doubled since 2019. By 2024, less than one-third of the area’s housing stock was considered affordable.
That does not mean the Obama Center single-handedly caused every increase. Housing markets are more complicated than that.
It does mean the displacement concerns raised by residents were not imaginary, irrational or anti-development.
They were early-warning signals.
So, Was the CBA Campaign a Failure?
No.
But it was not a clean victory either.
The organizing campaign accomplished several important things.
It forced displacement, local hiring and affordable housing into the center of the public discussion. It produced an ordinance that likely would not have existed without organized pressure. It pushed the Foundation to adopt stronger workforce and contracting commitments. It helped establish a model that organizers continue using in surrounding neighborhoods.
That matters.
Community power should not be judged only by whether it wins everything. Sometimes power is demonstrated by changing what government and developers are required to answer for.
But the results also reveal a hard truth:
A community benefit that nobody is required, funded or equipped to implement can quietly become a community suggestion.
The weakness was not simply that every goal was not achieved.
The deeper weakness was the gap between policy adoption and enforceable delivery.
What Wichita Should Learn
This is where the story becomes directly relevant to the Richard Robinson District Community Benefits Agreement Group.
RRCBA’s community standards already address employment, housing, education, financial empowerment, food access, health, youth, transportation, technology, neighborhood conditions and civic participation.
That gives Wichita something many communities do not have when a large project appears: a framework prepared before negotiations begin.
But a list of community priorities is only the starting point.
The Obama Center experience provides several rules Wichita should carry into every future development conversation.
Rule One: Get to the Table Before the Deal Is Finished
The strongest time to negotiate is before:
Land is transferred
Zoning is approved
Public financing is committed
Tax incentives are finalized
Construction begins
Officials become politically invested in announcing the project
After every approval has been granted, the community’s leverage usually drops faster than a contractor’s phone battery during a three-hour public meeting.
Community engagement should begin while the project still needs something—not after it already has everything.
Rule Two: Define Exactly Who Counts as “Local”
“Local hiring” can mean residents living directly around the project.
It can also mean anyone living within city limits.
Those are not the same thing.
A strong agreement should define:
Eligible ZIP codes or census tracts
Priority populations
Whether goals apply to workers, labor hours or both
Whether apprentices count separately from experienced workers
Whether returning citizens and disconnected young adults receive targeted access
How residency will be verified
For RRCBA, that also means being explicit about benefits reaching historically excluded residents, including American Descendants of Slavery—not merely assuming that broad diversity language will produce targeted repair.
What is not defined can be reinterpreted.
Rule Three: Turn Aspirations Into Numbers
“Support local businesses” sounds good.
“Twenty percent of total contract dollars will be awarded to independently owned businesses headquartered within the impact area” can be measured.
“Create good jobs” sounds good.
“Permanent positions must pay at least a stated wage, offer predictable scheduling and include benefits” can be enforced.
Every major commitment should identify:
The responsible party
The required action
The dollar amount or percentage
The deadline
The reporting schedule
The enforcement mechanism
The remedy when performance falls short
No mystery. No motivational fog. No “we remain committed to exploring opportunities.”
Rule Four: Fund the Programs Before Announcing Them
Chicago’s experience shows that creating a program is not the same as making it usable.
Programs fail when:
Subsidies are too small
Application requirements are unrealistic
Nobody is assigned to conduct outreach
Residents need technical assistance but none is provided
Funding is not placed beyond ordinary budget politics
Agencies lack staff or incentive to enforce the rules
A CBA should state not only what program will exist, but how it will be funded, staffed and accessed.
Otherwise, the community gets a website, a press conference and a phone number nobody answers.
Rule Five: Pay for Independent Monitoring
Monitoring cannot be an afterthought.
A serious agreement should require public reporting on:
Worker residency
Labor hours
Wages and benefits
Apprenticeship enrollment and completion
Contract awards and actual payments
Business ownership and location
Affordable units created or preserved
Residents receiving housing assistance
Complaints, violations and corrective actions
The monitor should be independent, properly funded and required to publish information in language ordinary residents can understand.
A 90-page spreadsheet uploaded on a city website at 4:47 p.m. on a Friday is technically disclosure.
It is not transparency.
Rule Six: Give the Community Enforcement Rights
This is the line separating a real agreement from a well-written promise.
The community coalition—or a designated community entity—should have the right to:
Review records
Submit complaints
Demand corrective-action plans
Participate in oversight meetings
Use mediation or arbitration
Seek court enforcement when necessary
Recover reasonable enforcement costs
Trigger financial consequences for persistent noncompliance
Community input without community power is basically a suggestion box attached to a locked door.
Rule Seven: Protect Residents Before Speculation Peaks
Anti-displacement work cannot wait until rents have already doubled.
Before major development begins, cities and community coalitions should consider:
Property-tax relief for longtime homeowners
Home-repair grants
Affordable-housing acquisition funds
Community land trusts
Tenant legal assistance
Right-to-purchase programs
Limits on public-land sales
Requirements for replacement housing
Support for heirs’ property and estate planning
Funding for locally owned commercial property
Development creates value.
The question is whether existing residents gain equity from that value—or receive a moving notice because of it.
Rule Eight: Use Both Contracts and Public Policy
A project-specific CBA and a city ordinance are not enemies.
A strong strategy can use both.
The CBA binds the developer and gives the coalition enforcement rights.
The ordinance or development agreement allows the city to tie public approvals, subsidies and land-use decisions to broader requirements.
One protects the specific project.
The other can help establish standards for future projects.
Wichita should not have to reinvent community accountability every time a developer arrives with a new logo.
The Bigger Lesson
The Obama Presidential Center is visually impressive, culturally significant and capable of bringing meaningful investment to Chicago’s South Side.
Those facts can coexist with legitimate criticism about displacement, implementation and accountability.
We do not have to choose between celebrating a historic Black institution and asking whether Black residents around it are being protected.
Mature communities can do both.
In fact, we must.
The most important lesson is not that large developments are bad.
It is that good intentions are not an accountability system.
Community benefits must be negotiated early, defined clearly, funded adequately, reported publicly and enforced independently.
Otherwise, the community may receive inspirational speeches while somebody else receives the contracts, property appreciation and long-term ownership.
At RRCBA, our goal is not to stand outside development yelling at the bulldozers.
Our goal is to make sure residents are inside the room before anyone decides where the bulldozers are going, who will operate them, who will be paid, what will be built and who will still be able to live nearby when the work is finished.
That is not anti-development.
That is development with a memory, a conscience and a receipt.
Help Set Wichita’s Community Standards
RRCBA’s 16 community themes represent a shared vision for jobs, housing, education, health, safety, youth development, financial empowerment and neighborhood prosperity.
These standards become more powerful when residents affirm them, participate in committees and help turn broad priorities into measurable expectations.
Do not wait until the next major project is already approved.
Join the conversation now.
Support the community standards. Get involved with an RRCBA committee. Help build the organized community voice Wichita will need when the next major investment arrives.
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