Judge: Legal fight can continue over whether to build Obama Center in Jackson Park

Following Blakey’s ruling, the Washington, D.C.-based Cultural Landscape Foundation cheered the Feb. 19 decision. The Foundation earlier had filed an amicus brief opposing the project.

In a prepared statement, Charles Birnbaum, president and CEO of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, said he believed the controversy could be ended if the Obama Foundation would choose to relocate the project site to “vacant and/or city-owned land on the South Side … or better still, land owned by the University of Chicago, which submitted the winning bid to host the Center.”

“The Obama Foundation and the University of Chicago created this controversy by insisting on the confiscation of public parkland,” Birnbaum said in the statement.