WOODLAWN — The Obama Presidential Center finally has an opening date after years of construction and delays.
The presidential library and its surrounding campus in Jackson Park will open June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in America, former President Barack Obama announced Saturday.
A dedication ceremony will take place June 18 before the center opens to the public the following day, Obama announced on social media.
“I also want to take a moment to say ‘thank you’ to the city of Chicago and especially to the residents of the South Side,” Obama said in the announcement video. “Thank you for embracing this presidential center, not as something of mine, but of yours. Hope is coming home, and it wouldn’t have happened without all of you.”
Today, Michelle and I are proud to announce that we will be hosting the dedication ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center on June 18th in Chicago, and welcoming the public on June 19th.
We can’t wait for you to visit. Go to https://t.co/swMRHuB5Y4 to learn more. pic.twitter.com/8mcbWjs6cz
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 7, 2026
Obama said in December the long-await museum campus would open in June but did not specify an exact opening date at the time.
The privately funded, $850 million campus will include a museum building, a forum building, A Chicago Public Library branch, public art and green space. Outdoor amenities include a playground, the John Lewis Plaza, the Eleanor Roosevelt fruit and vegetable garden, a women’s garden and a “wetland walk,” according to the Obama Center, 6001 S. Stony Island Ave.
The Home Court — an arena with a full-size basketball court, intersecting practice courts and fitness and training facilities — will also open there this year.
The Obama Center’s placement in Chicago was announced in 2015. Construction on the campus began in 2021, the same year the center was initially planned to open.
Development was delayed for years partly because of a number of failed legal challenges to its location in Jackson Park, as well as a series of federal reviews. It reached a construction milestone in June 2024, when the main museum building reached its full height.
Former President Barack Obama joins construction workers to celebrate the Barack Obama Presidential Center construction reaching its full height at a “topping out” event on June 10, 2024. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
The campus will be free and open to the public, though the museum will require a purchased ticket to enter. For more information on the center’s opening and visiting the museum, click here.
Fears of displacement and inequitable investment attributable to the Obama Center’s arrival led some South Siders to demand the city and developers enter into an agreement ensuring specific community benefits from the project.
The Obama Foundation rejected calls to sign such an agreement, though City Council passed two slates of housing protections for neighborhoods near the center in 2020 and 2025.
Last week, neighbors of a building blocks from the Obama Center campus said they are facing displacement after their landlord effectively abandoned the building and as nearby properties are redeveloped.
Maxwell Evans contributed reporting.
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