They say you can judge a man by what he builds. Rising 220 feet over Chicago’s South Side like a granite-clad trash can, Barack Obama’s Presidential Center has been called a Death Star, a monstrosity, and a huge insult to the lakefront. Whatever you call it, one thing is beyond dispute: at over $1 billion and counting — ballooned far beyond original projections — it is the most expensive presidential library ever constructed. And it was built on public parkland the Obama Foundation leased for 99 years at the staggering price of ten dollars. You read that right. Ten bucks.
The project was supposed to take two years. It took five. It was supposed to cost a fraction of what it eventually devoured. A $470 million reserve fund, promoted as a financial safeguard for taxpayers, currently sits at roughly $1 million. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods around Jackson Park contend with displacement pressures and rising costs, all in the shadow of a building most of them never asked for. But the Foundation threw a star-studded grand opening anyway — Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, John Legend — on Juneteenth, no less, to celebrate what they called a gift to the community.
Some gift.
It turns out the people who actually poured the concrete, ran the plumbing, and installed the glass weren’t invited to the party — because many of them are too busy trying not to go bankrupt. The Obama Presidential Center was marketed as a model for minority-owned business participation, with the Foundation pledging that 50% of subcontracting packages would go to diverse vendors. It was going to uplift communities. Create opportunity. In reality, it has left a trail of unpaid invoices, financial ruin, and silenced small-business owners bound by non-disclosure agreements.
From Fox News Digital:
“That is a hole that no subcontractor, small business can survive,” said Mike Owen, whose plumbing company is nearly $4 million in the red after years of work on the project. “I feel like an aluminum can that’s been thrown in front of a steamroller. We’re crushed.”
Owen submitted more than 100 change-order requests during construction — a staggering number reflecting constant design revisions, rework, and delays. And he’s far from alone. One Black-owned concrete firm filed claims exceeding $40 million. At least two minority-owned subcontractors sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. A 35-year industry veteran called it “the worst-run job I’ve ever been on.” And those are just the ones willing to talk.
Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association, says contractors have been coming to him privately for months, terrified to speak publicly. Some have put up their mortgages. Some are losing their bonding. Some are simply finished. “What sense is it celebrating Juneteenth,” Shareef asked reporters, “if our Black contractors are not getting their money?”
I’d love to hear the Foundation’s answer to that. But don’t hold your breath — their official response was that they paid the construction manager, the construction manager hired the subcontractors, and that’s where their responsibility ends. Hands washed. Move along.
If that kind of buck-passing sounds familiar, it should, because this building is Obama’s eight years in office rendered in granite and glass. This is the man who told you if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor, then watched premiums skyrocket. Who nearly doubled the national debt while lecturing the rest of us about responsibility. Who pushed government-run solutions into every corner of American life — healthcare, welfare, energy — and left working people worse off for it. Money grows on trees when you’re spending someone else’s.
I’ll say this much: the Obama Presidential Center might be the most honest thing the man ever built. It’s bloated. It’s massively over budget. It made grand promises to the very communities it now burdens. And the people who did the actual work — the ones with calluses and mortgages and small businesses on the line — got stiffed while celebrities toasted champagne on the front lawn.
Every man’s monument eventually tells the truth. This one speaks volumes.
Sources: The Post Millennial, Fox News
The post Black Contractors Face Financial Ruin After Obama Presidential Center Stiffs Subcontractors Out of Millions appeared first on Patriot Journal.
