CHICAGO – A shiny new library, a towering museum and a civic center devoted to the nation’s 44th president have been a decade in the making on Chicago’s South Side.

Now, the Obama Presidential Center is on the verge of opening to the public on Juneteenth weekend.

The center sits on a 19.3-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side, complete with a playground, sledding hill, Chicago Public Library branch and more. Standing eight stories tall in the park is the museum, a slightly different take on historical presidential libraries. Instead of housing all of the records at a presidential library, the Obama Foundation had the presidential archives digitized and instead created a museum and community spaces.

Like other presidential libraries, the museum has a replica of the Oval Office as it appeared when former President Barack Obama was in the White House. It comes complete with a time capsule from his technological era: a Blackberry phone in the drawer of the Resolute Desk.

Obama Foundation leaders said the museum serves to inspire visitors to get involved and become changemakers and leaders. Throughout the museum, interactive stations try to show users how they might participate in society.

“(Obama) wanted it to be a living, breathing, engaging location for people from across the street or around the world would feel welcome, would feel safe, would feel engaged, inspired and motivated to bring about change in their own lives,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett told reporters during a June 3 media preview.

See inside the center opening later this month.

When does the Obama Presidential Center Open?

The Obama Presidential Center opens to the public June 19. As of June 3, tickets were sold out until the end of August.

There will also be an invite-only grand opening ceremony on June 18 with performances and speeches.

Where is the Obama Presidential Center?

The museum and the surrounding campus are on Chicago’s South Side in Jackson Park. It’s near the University of Chicago and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

How much time and money went into the Obama Presidential Center?

The Obama Foundation announced in 2015 that the home of his presidential center would be in Chicago. The next year, it focused on Jackson Park, which prompted a yearslong federal review process because Jackson Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Chicago-based nonprofit Protect Our Parks sued to stop construction on the historic site, but the lawsuits were ultimately dismissed. The center also faced concerns from some community groups that its presence would price out local residents. The foundation touts investment in the community through the estimated 750,000 campus visitors a year and 300 permanent jobs. The Chicago City Council also passed affordable-housing ordinances in the nearby neighborhoods.

When the Obama Foundation finally broke ground in 2021, it estimated the project would cost $500 million. More recent estimates from the foundation put the price tag at $850 million.

The center includes the ticketed museum, a civic center with a cafe and restaurant, an athletic center, a Chicago Public Library branch and more.