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- Feb 16, 2016
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Subcontractors say they’re owed millions, face financial ruin, after helping build Obama Presidential Center
Adamson Plumbing owner Mike Owen says his company is owed nearly $4M on the Chicago project
Subcontractors say they’re owed millions, face financial ruin, after helping build Obama Presidential Center
Subcontractors claim millions in unpaid losses from Obama Presidential Center construction as the Chicago project prepares to open on Juneteenth.
www.foxnews.com
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.
But now, some of the very subcontractors who helped build the 19.3-acre campus on Chicago’s South Side say they are facing financial ruin as they race to recover millions of dollars they claim remain unpaid ahead of the center's grand opening Friday. Overall construction costs were reported to be $830 million in 2021, and have likely climbed past the $1 billion mark.
A Fox News Digital investigation identified multiple construction firms claiming losses ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions. The allegations cut against one of the Center's defining goals: helping minority-owned businesses and local contractors grow through one of Chicago's highest-profile construction projects. Several of the complaints reviewed by Fox News Digital come from firms that were supposed to benefit from that mission.
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Subcontractor owners interviewed by Fox News Digital described what they characterized as a chaotic work environment marked by repeated design changes, rework, scheduling disruptions, extensive oversight and years-long compensation disputes that still remain unresolved.
Several also described what they viewed as a wall of silence surrounding the project, with some declining to speak publicly or requesting anonymity because of confidentiality agreements or fears of professional retaliation.
Fears of speaking out
Advocates for Black subcontractor firms say those companies have been muzzled by a non-disclosure agreement and a reluctance to speak publicly because of the prestige surrounding the project in Obama’s adopted hometown, a Democratic stronghold, as well as concerns that speaking out could jeopardize payments.
"They are scared to death about talking about it," Omar Shareef, the president of the African American Contractors Association, told Fox News Digital outside the center on a recent Saturday. The group advocates for Black-owned construction businesses and was founded by Shareef in 1989.
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Local companies on the brink
One minority-owned subcontractor owner told Fox News Digital his company was up to $2.5 million in the red but declined to speak publicly, citing non-disclosure agreements and ongoing efforts to resolve disputes. The owner said the contract for the job was originally expected to last 24 months but ultimately stretched to about five years.
~Snip~
Promise vs. reality
The concerns are particularly notable because the Obama Presidential Center was built around one of the most ambitious efforts to increase participation by minority-owned businesses and workers from historically underserved communities.
The Obama Foundation committed to awarding 50% of subcontracting packages to diverse vendors — nearly double Chicago’s goals for minority- and women-owned businesses — while requiring 35% of workforce hours to come from targeted South and West Side communities. Foundation officials said the effort was intended to serve as a model for future development projects and help create a pipeline of workers and contractors for projects across Chicago.
Commentary:
A non-disclosure agreement for a construction subcontractor? Are you F-ing kidding me???? Obama takes the cake for that one. And the advocate is right - even if there was no NDA, anyone speaking out is going to get the Rodeo Clown treatment - massive public pressure and attacks to shut up and go away to avoid besmirching Saviour Barrack, or is it Barry Soetoro.
The edifice looks more like a WWII Berlin Flak tower than a presidential library.
Too bad for Adamson Plumbing and others who are owed millions. Apparently they forgot Obama's comments in July 2012 when speaking to another businessman: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Good luck with the liens.
Never in the history of our great country has such a small group done so little for so few for so long while declining so many opportunities, then proceed to inflict such untold misery, cruelty, disrespect and degradation on so many all the while cloaked with the permeating stench of entitlement.
