4 finalists named for Obama library

The Obama presidential library will be hosted in either Chicago, New York City or Hawaii.

The foundation overseeing the fundraising and construction of the Obama Library narrowed down the 13 bids submitted earlier this year to four sites: the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Columbia University and the University of Hawaii.

{mosads}“We were amazed by the quality of responses to our Request for Qualifications and we are grateful to every institution that expressed interest in carrying President Obama’s legacy forward,” Martin Nesbitt, the chairman of the foundation, said in a statement. 

“These four potential partners have come the farthest in meeting our criteria and have each demonstrated a strong vision for the future Obama Presidential Library,” he added. “We look forward to working with each institution to further refine their proposals over the coming months, and to presenting our recommendations to the President and First Lady early next year.” 

The four universities will now be asked to submit a second, more detailed proposal for the future library. According to the foundation, those submissions will be evaluated based on site development plans, community partnerships and potential for academic collaboration.

Universities will also be asked to unveil a marketing strategy and disclose financial commitments in the proposals, which are due in mid-December.

The foundation’s board of directors, which includes Nesbitt, a Chicago businessman, David Plouffe, who served as Obama’s campaign manager in 2008, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s younger, maternal half-sister, and Kevin Poorman, a businessman with close ties to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, will then unveil their recommendations to the president and first lady in January. The first family is expected to make a final decision in early 2015.

The University of Chicago, where both the president and first lady worked before Obama was elected to the Senate, is seen as the front-runner for the site. Longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod now serves as the founding director of the university’s Institute of Politics, and numerous other former administration officials now work for the university.

Still, adviser Valerie Jarrett insisted in June that no city had a lock on the site.

“Chicago is home for both the president and first lady, but they’ve received several bids,” Jarrett told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.

Jarrett said the president would not raise money for the library while he remained in office, and that the Obamas had not made a decision about where they wanted to live after leaving the White House.