Obamas break ground on presidential center after years of controversy

After five years of legal battles, gentrification concerns and a federal review, former President Obama and his wife, Michelle, dug shovels into the ground Tuesday during a celebratory groundbreaking on their legacy project in a lakefront Chicago park. Construction on the site along Lake Michigan, near the Obama family home and where the former president started his political career on Chicago’s South Side, officially began last month. Standing near an excavator and other heavy equipment, President Obama described how the city’s South Side shaped him, first as a community organizer, then as a husband, father and elected official. MOVE OPC.” Obama, who didn’t take questions during the event, has said over the years that the center would bring new jobs to the area and that new trees would be planted on the campus. The former president has said he hopes the center will help jump-start the economic engine of the city’s South Side.