Obama Presidential Center prepares to open in Chicago

The Obama Presidential Center is set to open on Chicago’s South Side with an eight-story museum, acres of public space and exhibits covering Barack Obama’s campaigns, presidency, early life and family story.

The nearly 20-acre campus at 6001 S. Stony Island Ave. officially opens to the public on Juneteenth, more than a decade after Obama chose his hometown for the project. Grand opening festivities are scheduled for June 19-21 as a free, open-house-style weekend, with a ceremony planned for June 18. Former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are expected to come to Chicago for the opening.

“It is a living, breathing legacy, because our hope is is that people bring change back to their communities,” Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett told NBC News.

The roughly $850 million project is not a traditional presidential library. It is a campus that includes a museum tower, a full-size basketball court, gardens, ball fields, a children’s playground, picnic areas with grills, public art, green space and a branch of the Chicago Public Library. Most of the campus will be free and open to the public, while the museum will require admission.

Museum officials told NBC News the center is expected to draw as many as one million visitors annually. Tens of thousands of people, including friends and family of museum staff, students and journalists, have already toured the site as crews complete final art installations and landscaping.

Inside the museum, visitors first see the word “hope,” NPR reported. The exhibits begin not with Obama himself, but with U.S. history, including the Declaration of Independence, slavery, Reconstruction, the suffrage movement and the civil rights movement.

“It begins with the history of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the suffrage movement, slavery, reconstruction, the civil rights movement, all of the different ways in which ordinary people brought about the change that led to his presidency,” Jarrett told NPR.

The museum then moves through Obama’s early life, the 2008 presidential campaign, his two terms in the White House and the personal story of the Obama family. Displays include campaign buttons, handmade and mass-produced signs, a documentary-style video about the election and a timeline of accomplishments from his administration. NPR reported that the timeline includes the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement and lifting the ban on transgender people serving in the military. NPR noted that some of those policies were later reversed by President Trump.

Artifacts on display include Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and a handprint art project he made in elementary school. The museum also features a replica of the Oval Office as it appeared during his presidency and a display of Michelle Obama’s clothing, including about a dozen outfits behind glass. NBC News reported that one is the black and red Narciso Rodriguez dress she wore on election night in 2008 in Chicago. NPR reported the display also includes a basic sleeveless dress from Target.

One famous item is absent: Obama’s tan suit. Jarrett told NPR she asked him about it. “I think I gave it away,” she recalled him saying. “He wasn’t even positive where it ended up, but he did give it away. So we just have photos, beautiful photos of that tan suit.”

The museum will use timed entry tickets. Admission is $30 for adults 12 and older, or $26 for Illinois residents. Tickets for children ages 3 to 11 cost $23, or $15 for Illinois residents. Illinois residents can visit the museum free on Tuesdays with proof of residency, and Illinois teachers, active-duty military members, veterans and Chicago first responders also receive free admission, according to the museum’s website. Museum tickets for opening weekend are sold out, though the broader campus will be open to all.