The planned site on the Midway Plaisance of a parking garage for the Obama Presidential Center (OPC) may be moved, according to one of the Center’s head architects.
Current plans for the Center have the parking garage located on a city-owned patch of land at the end of the Midway, along Stony Island Avenue between East 59th and East 60th Streets, east of the Metra tracks.
The parking garage is located across Stony Island Avenue from the OPC’s planned Jackson Park site.
Some community members have protested the garage’s location due to the loss of public parkland. The existing plan for the garage includes a grass-covered roof to compensate for the lost space.
The architect, Tod Williams, who with his wife Billie Tsien has overseen the design of the OPC buildings and site, said that other possibilities include moving the site underground or moving it across the street to the OPC site itself.
According to an Obama Foundation source cited in a Chicago Sun-Times article, changing the location of the parking garage would not necessarily prevent the Foundation from submitting its plans to the Chicago Plan Commission by the end of the year.
