The Obama Foundation promised a gleaming monument and an economic boom. What Chicago’s South Side has instead is a towering gray monolith, years of delays, spiraling costs—and neighbors who say they’re being priced out while the insiders get paid.

The project’s budget has detonated from an early $300 million estimate to roughly $850 million in recent disclosures. That’s nearly triple the original pitch, even as the opening date keeps sliding to spring 2026 after a thicket of legal fights and construction holdups. Along the way, the foundation’s top brass have done just fine: CEO Valerie Jarrett reportedly pulled in about $740,000 last year; other senior executives collected paychecks north of $400,000 to $600,000. For many South Side residents staring at surging rents, those numbers land like a slap.

Even elected Democrats in the neighborhood are sounding alarms about displacement. Alderwoman Jeannette Taylor, who represents the area around Jackson Park, put it bluntly: big developments like this nearly always push out the very people they claim to help. “We’re going to see rents go higher and we’re going to see families displaced,” she warned, echoing what longtime homeowners and renters have been saying since the first shovels hit dirt.

Meanwhile, the building’s look has become its own controversy. What was billed as a landmark has been knocked by locals as a joyless “eyesore,” a massive slab that clashes with the park’s character. The foundation recently tried to dress it up with an 83-foot painted glass installation by artist Julie Mehretu. Price tag undisclosed; patience in the neighborhood, exhausted.

On the ground, workers describe a job site micromanaged by DEI patrols. A veteran construction foreman said the culture was “very woke from the time they broke ground,” with roving foundation staffers peppering crews with identity questionnaires—who’s white, who’s straight, who’s trans—like any of that pours concrete or sets steel. The result, he said, was predictable: more paperwork, more boxes to check, more time lost. Add legal wrangling and ever-expanding scope, and the schedule blew apart.

The foundation’s fundraising machine, however, is humming. Donations have reportedly surpassed $1 billion after a fresh $195 million infusion last year. In other words, the money is there. The question—always the question in Chicago—is who benefits. Jackson Park’s surrounding blocks are seeing the classic pattern: speculative buying, higher assessments, landlords hiking rents in anticipation of the grand opening. The promised wave of opportunity looks a lot like a tide that lifts everyone except the people who lived there first.

It didn’t have to be this way. A project of this scale could have been a chance to build trust: prioritize neighborhood input, keep the design in harmony with the park, lock in real anti-displacement guarantees, and keep costs—and executive pay—within the bounds of basic prudence. Instead, residents got a fortress, sticker shock, and lectures about equity while they’re packing boxes.

Defenders will argue that iconic institutions are expensive; that art, security, and infrastructure don’t come cheap; that delays happen. Fair enough. But when a budget nearly triples, when leadership hauls in elite-coastal salaries, when the façade needs an 83-foot art piece to soften its glare, and when the people next door are the ones eating the consequences, you’re not witnessing shared prosperity—you’re watching a power project.

The looming opening date won’t erase the past five years. If anything, it’s about to make the neighborhood stress more acute as the hype machine shifts into overdrive. Crowds will come, traffic will snarl, and property values will keep marching. The foundation will cut ribbons. The city’s political class will take a victory lap. And the families who made the South Side home will be left asking why their voices were drowned out by donors, consultants, and a culture-war checklist that treated them like scenery.

Chicagoans know a raw deal when they see one. The Obama Center was sold as a love letter to the community. Too often, it’s read like a bill.