HYDE PARK — Friends of the Parks cheered the apparent selection of Chicago as site for the Obama Presidential Library, but urged that the use of public parkland be reconsidered.
Lauren Moltz, chairwoman of the group's board, issued a statement Friday saying: "Friends of the Parks welcomes the selection of Chicago as a site for this important deposit of the president's papers, but urges the president to preserve the integrity of Chicago's historic parks as well."
The City Plan Commission voted in March to make 20 acres of either Washington Park or Jackson Park available for the University of Chicago's bid for the library.
But Friends of the Parks urged the president "to leave intact ... the historic Jackson and Washington parks as they were originally designed by visionary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted."
It cited how, as a young community organizer at the beginning of his career, Obama consulted Friends of the Parks on how to increase parkland on the South Side.
Friends of the Parks already has filed suit against placing the George Lucas' Museum of Narrative Art on public property between Soldier Field and McCormick Place and has threatened the same for the Obama library if it's to be placed on Park District property.
The foundation formally responded by insisting it "has not made an announcement yet" on the library's location, according to foundation spokeswoman Olivia Alair Dolton.
Yet multiple news outlets, citing anonymous sources, reported Thursday that the University of Chicago's bid was approved, with a formal announcement coming later this month.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office declined to comment, and spokesmen for 3rd Ward Ald. Pat Dowell and 5th Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston, in whose wards Washington Park and Jackson Park sit, said they had not been notified of an Obama Library decision.
“This is all rumors right now,” said Kevin Lampe, a spokesman for Dowell.
"I have not been notified by the president or the foundation, so I am waiting for official notification. But it's exciting," Hairston said.
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