As can be seen in the diagram above, the Obama Presidential Center is not located within, or even in close proximity, to any areas of business activity.  In fact, it orients itself away from these areas, positioning the main entry plaza in a tree-fronted courtyard having limited engagement with the busy thoroughfare of Stony Island Avenue.  Clearly, efforts have been made with the goal of establishing a relationship between the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry, to the north and east respectively.  However, neither of these is in the southwesterly direction of challenged neighborhood commercial corridors, the places best suited for the establishment and growth of local businesses. It therefore remains highly questionable as to the degree any significant new activity will be directed toward the South Shore and Woodlawn neighborhoods.  Separated from the broader community by the raised Illinois Central embankment and impenetrable private developments, the OPC is most appropriately understood as an extension of the University of Chicago’s campus into Jackson Park, not a vehicle for invigorating surrounding neighborhoods.

Directly across the street from the Obama Presidential Center is a private, fenced development of suburban-style townhouses, followed by Hyde Park High School and its parking lots further south.  South yet of the high school is the low-density South Side YMCA, then at last by areas zoned for business uses.  This is the closest commercial corridor to the Obama Presidential Center, located roughly ½ mile from its entry.

However, nothing to support economic growth on a neighborhood scale exists here, with numerous impediments to a thriving commercial streetscape.  These include a modernist apartment block and other residential uses, many vacant lots, and a drive-through fast food establishment.  The sheer bulk of Stony Island and its traffic count are also drawbacks in producing a thriving, neighborhood-oriented economic outcome.  The most likely developments to occur along the street are high-volume, suburban style commercial uses, or large corporate investments such as hotels.  Such developments may include members of the community on their payroll, increasing overall employment, but typically are not facilitators of endemic growth and self-sufficiency because they lack an incubational nature.

Thus, in the University of Chicago’s traffic reports and economic development studies, primary growth due to a Presidential Center in Jackson Park has been theorized to occur along East 63rd Street.  Unfortunately, these rosy predictions appear to ignore that most of this street was rezoned not long ago for low-density residential uses.  Today this area is occupied by a scattershot collection of single-family homes, a large church and its blocks of parking lots, educational facilities, and a smattering of suburban-style retail.  The traditional, commercially zoned area of this corridor commences well over one a mile from the main entry of the proposed Presidential Center when traveling by foot or vehicle; the likelihood that many of the Center’s visitors will arrive at this destination is hardly guaranteed.  Amazingly, in a change not reflected in the report cited on the prior slide, the project's planners have shifted the Center to the north over the course of time, closer to the “safe havens” of the University and further from residential neighborhoods.  Thus, the primary activity of the Presidential Center today is more remote yet from any commercial areas longing for new investment.

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The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, AR, can be correctly viewed as a demonstrative antecedent concerning the propitious siting of a presidential center for positive community growth.  That project, located in a formerly downtrodden part of the city, has spurred considerable economic activity and revival by virtue of its thoughtfully chosen location and design.  It is deeply regrettable that the Obama Presidential Center and the South Side of Chicago appear to be missing the same strategic advantages.  Relocating the project to the Washington Park neighborhood, situated directly within to an existing commercial corridor, in an area pleading for economic growth, would allow the project to recapture this sorely lost part of its mission.

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