Major Construction Milestone: Museum Building Top Out
In May 2024, Lakeside Alliance achieved a major construction milestone on the Obama Presidential Center site: the topping out of the Museum Building at its final height of 225 feet. A culmination of two years of world-class work, the only thing that could top this milestone was a visit by President Barack Obama on June 10, 2024 to express his appreciation to the team.
Dressed in a hard hat and reflector vest, President Obama met with the workforce, posed for photos and added his signature to dozens of messages scrawled by workers onto a support beam that will be part of the ceiling in the Sky Room.
“I just want to say thank you so much everybody. I've watched it every stage of the way, and the dedication that all of you have shown, the professionalism, the hard work, the willingness to be out here when it's freezing cold, the sacrifices all of you've made to make this happen is something that I could not be more grateful for and appreciative,” President Obama shared. “So, hats off…to all of you for helping to make that happen.”
The Museum Building is the tallest structure on the Center’s 19.3-acre campus. The Sky Room, the top floor of the Museum Building, will be a space to reflect and take in sweeping views of Lake Michigan to the East, the skyscrapers of downtown Chicago to the North and the South Side of Chicago to the West and South.
More than 300,000 workforce hours, 18,000 cubic yards of concrete and 1,842 tons of rebar went into the structure. “Union ironworkers, carpenters, and others came together like an orchestra to finish this product,” said Osvaldo “Wally” Martinez, the general ironworker foreman responsible for managing all ironworkers with II in One Construction as part of Concrete Collective.
Bringing 25 years of experience to the job, Martinez described the challenges and opportunities of the build: “As a Presidential Center, this was always going to be unlike any other job. The unique shape of the building, the detail and the additional reinforcements we added to deliver the highest-quality product differ from other ‘typical’ buildings, but it’s cool to be a part of that and experience doing things a little differently. It gives you even more of a sense of pride and accomplishment to be able to do whatever needs to be done.”
At its peak, Martinez’s rebar crew consisted of approximately 40 workers. The subcontractors, vendors and suppliers involved in this work include Ozinga, Doka, Nucor Corporation, Central Contractors of ALL Family of Companies, Gateway Construction Company Inc, Capital Industrial Coatings, NuVeterans Construction and Imbert International Inc.
The building top out and site visit by President Obama was featured by local print and broadcast media. “I couldn’t even imagine that I would actually be meeting him,” Kyla Davis, an electrical engineering intern, said during an interview on ABC 7. “Him speaking to me was like . . . it was just so exciting!”
With the Center more than 50 percent complete, crews are now installing granite on the exterior of the museum building, while inside, work continues installing escalators, elevators and drywall for the museum galleries. The Museum will consist of four floors featuring key events, policies, challenges and achievements during the Obama presidency.
“This is really the Obamas’ gift to Chicago and the people of Chicago, which will enable them to come here and discuss current topics, not only politics, but life issues, and so I’m happy to be a part of that,” Ernest Brown, Lakeside Alliance Principal and President of Brown & Momen, told the Chicago Sun-Times.