Subcontractors Say Lakeside Alliance Owes Millions For Unpaid Change Orders At Obama Center

Work on the $850-million Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s Jackson Park is opening June 19 in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, but subcontractors say invoices remain unpaid for change orders and other work.

“As the Obama Presidential Center Opens, the South Side Counts the Cost The $850 million campus opens on Juneteenth with a $30 admission ticket, a $1 million endowment balance, rising rents in the surrounding neighborhoods, and Black-owned subcontractors still waiting to be paid”

EEW Magazine

Engineering News-Record reported that subcontractors are seeking payments through the project’s prime contractor, Lakeside Alliance, a venture that includes Turner Construction Co., Power and Sons Construction, UJAMAA Construction, Brown & Momen, Safeway Constructionand W.E. O'Neil Construction.

EEW Magazine

Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association, told Crain's Chicago Business that seven separate subcontractors have contacted him in recent months for help pursuing payments.

Adamson Plumbing, a minority-owned business, says it is owed more than $2 million, and its president, Michael Owen, said the company has “close to $450,000 in price and proceed and a couple of them we are now at a complete loss for.”

In a statement, Lakeside Alliance said contractual closeout continues long after the doors open, reading: “including the review and resolution of outstanding invoices, change orders, and other project matters—continues long after the doors open.”

EEW Magazine said the $850 million campus opens to the public on June 19, the Juneteenth holiday, with a grand opening ceremony the night before, and it described a 19.3-acre Jackson Park site that includes a 225-foot museum tower and a digital library.

The same report said median rents in the neighborhoods near the campus have risen 43 percent and home values 130 percent since the center was first announced in 2015, while Black-owned subcontractors say they are still waiting to be paid.

Engineering News-Record (ENR)

EEW Magazine also said a $470 million reserve fund the Obama Foundation pledged to seed for the center’s long-term operations stands at roughly $1 million, and it added that the foundation estimated annual operating costs at roughly $40 million.

Fox News Digital reported that the foundation deposited $1 million into the reserve fund in 2021 and that the balance has remained largely unchanged in its most recent publicly available filings.

Richard Epstein, a New York University law professor who has challenged the project in court, told Fox News Digital: “If the endowment hasn't been filled, the building [could] fall into neglect, it then becomes a safety risk, and it turns out that nobody's going to pay the bill.”

Fox News said subcontractors who helped build the 19.3-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side are racing to recover millions of dollars they claim remain unpaid ahead of the center's grand opening Friday.

“CHICAGO — The Obama Presidential Center was billed as a lasting legacy to former President Barack Obama, and its construction was touted as an ambitious model built with aggressive goals for minority-owned and local businesses”

Fox News

The outlet reported that overall construction costs were reported to be $830 million in 2021 and have likely climbed past the $1 billion mark, and it highlighted Adamson Plumbing owner Mike Owen saying he is nearly $4 million in the red after years of work on the project.

Owen told Fox News Digital, “That is a hole that no subcontractor, small business can survive,” and the report said he described a chaotic work environment with repeated design changes, rework, scheduling disruptions, extensive oversight, and years-long compensation disputes.

Fox News Digital also said the allegations emerge days after it reported the Obama Foundation’s reserve fund remains funded at roughly $1 million, despite being promoted as a $470 million financial safeguard.

The Obama Foundation told Fox News Digital that it paid Lakeside Alliance as the project’s construction manager and that Lakeside was responsible for hiring, managing and paying subcontractors working on the center, while Lakeside Alliance said projects of this scale are inherently complex and that outstanding project matters often continue long after construction ends.