The $850 million Obama Presidential Centre will open to the public on June 19 in Chicago’s Jackson Park, the Obama Foundation said.
The opening falls on Juneteenth and follows more than a decade of planning for the 19.3-acre campus.
The centre includes a museum, community spaces, gardens, a basketball court and a Chicago Public Library branch.
The campus was designed by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. The museum tower includes the Sky Room, which overlooks Chicago’s South Side, West Side and Lake Michigan.
The centre also features 28 site-specific art installations. They include Idris Khan’s “Sky of Hope” in the Sky Room and Julie Mehretu’s 83-foot vertical window.
The Obama Foundation said the presidential archive will be fully digital for the first time. The project involved digitising about 30 million pages, with some materials displayed in the museum.
Read: Obama Says Aliens Are Real: What the Former President Actually Meant
The centre is privately run by the nonprofit Obama Foundation, not the National Archives and Records Administration.
Earlier lawsuits and local concerns focused on public parkland use, tree removal and gentrification around the South Side site.
