Edward Johnson gets on his bike after working out at the running track in Jackson Park in 2016.
In an abrupt turn, the Chicago Park District and city of Chicago have decided to halt construction on a project that would relocate a track and field in Jackson Park, officials announced Monday.
The action means that instead of moving the track and field farther south in the park to make room for construction of the Obama Presidential Center, the project will be placed on hold, a city spokeswoman said in a statement.
The decision came “out of an abundance of caution,” said Shannon Breymaier, a spokeswoman for the city. The decision came after federal government officials expressed concern about the work, which was paid for with a $3.5 million grant from the Obama Foundation. The move was announced hours before federal officials were to hold a public meeting on the review process.
“The federal agencies have been informed that the Chicago Park District will stop construction until dialogue with the federal agencies confirms that resumption of work is appropriate,” Breymaier said in the statement.
“We do not anticipate that this action will impact or delay the construction schedule of the Obama Presidential Center,” she added.
For nearly a month, the Park District had been working to relocate the track and field. The project is separate from the proposed construction site for the center and is in a different area of the park.
But from the time work began in August, it alarmed some local environmentalists who said that doing the work was premature, coming before final federal approval of the presidential center.
The track and field project was approved by the city Plan Commission and the City Council. But this month, the project was denied a permit by the Chicago Department of Transportation. Later, conversations with the federal officials led to halt of the project.
Construction of the Obama Presidential Center was approved by the City Council in May.
But because Jackson Park is on the National Register of Historic Places, the Obama Foundation has to complete a federal review process before it can begin building.
The Park District, however, can make improvements to its sites without appealing to the federal government.
In February, the foundation announced that it would donate more than $3.5 million to the Park District to build this new artificial turf field. That announcement came after questions arose about where students would practice and host their games while the presidential center was being built. Now that the track project is being held up, it’s not clear where the students will go.
The presidential center is expected to cost more than $500 million and help transform the South Side by creating hundreds of jobs, attracting tourists and possibly sparking more economic development and investment in nearby communities.
But it has spurred opposition from environmentalists who don’t want it situated in a public park and from activists who want a contract guaranteeing a property tax freeze for homeowners, housing set aside for lower income residents and a trust fund to pay for neighborhood initiatives.