It’s happening: as a former president, Barack Obama will get a presidential library — though his team prefers to call the project a “center.” Obama recently tweeted about plans for his “center,” a term that surprised some observers. In 2019, The New York Times also noted that the facility wouldn’t be a traditional presidential library. Why? The Obamas reportedly did not want the National Archives and Records Administration to manage the records and the site:

The four-building, 19-acre “working center for citizenship,” set to be built in a public park on the South Side of Chicago, will include a 235-foot-high “museum tower,” a two-story event space, an athletic center, a recording studio, a winter garden, even a sledding hill.

Chicago is where Michelle was raised, where I got my start as an organizer, and where we built a family together. When the Obama Presidential Center opens next June, it will be our way to give back to a city that has given us so much. pic.twitter.com/DpIUDtyMpP

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 10, 2025

But the center, which will cost an estimated $500 million, will