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AMERICANALMANAC (Sadie Smith) - Obama Presidential Center subcontractor shuts down, lays off 25 workers over $4 million payment dispute Thu Jul 23 20:03:56 2026

A Chicago plumbing contractor that helped build the Obama Presidential Center has closed its doors and laid off 25 union workers after racking up nearly $4 million in losses on the project, and the Obama Foundation says the construction manager, not the foundation, handles payments. Mike Owen spent months trying to resolve the money quietly. […] The post Obama Presidential Center subcontractor shuts down, lays off 25 workers over $4 million payment dispute appeared first on American Almanac .

A Chicago plumbing contractor that helped build the Obama Presidential Center has closed its doors and laid off 25 union workers after racking up nearly $4 million in losses on the project, and the Obama Foundation says the construction manager, not the foundation, handles payments. Mike Owen spent months trying to resolve the money quietly. He negotiated with Lakeside Alliance, the joint venture managing construction at the center in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side. When those talks went nowhere, he went public. When a promised $100,000 payment failed to arrive before the center's grand opening on June 19, he pulled the plug. On June 25, Owen suspended operations at Adamson Plumbing Contractors, sent home 25 union workers, walked away from roughly half a dozen other construction jobs, and moved out of his office. He now works from his kitchen table. The shutdown marks the most visible casualty yet in a widening payment dispute between subcontractors and the organizations behind the billion-dollar presidential center, a project that was supposed to uplift local and minority-owned businesses but has instead, according to multiple contractors, left some of them facing financial ruin. Owen says a broken promise on $100,000 was the 'final death blow' Before the center opened, Owen and Lakeside Alliance struck a deal. Adamson would provide two journeyman plumbers for last-minute "housekeeping" work at premium nighttime rates. In return, Lakeside would release $100,000 through Adamson's May payment application, days before the June 19 ribbon-cutting. An email reviewed by Fox News Digital confirmed a Lakeside representative told Owen the money would come. It didn't. Owen described the agreement and its collapse bluntly: "We negotiated it in good faith. Against my better judgment, I agreed [to do the work]." The $100,000 finally arrived more than two weeks after Owen shut down, alongside roughly $35,000 in change order payments. By then, Owen said, it was too late to matter. "It's almost like too little, too late. It probably would have just prolonged the inevitable at this point. We're still deep in the hole of what they owe us." Owen's company, operating under the name Marsh-Adamson for its work on the center, has since filed a $1.72 million mechanic's lien, a legal claim against the property itself, alleging it remains owed money for plumbing work performed on campus. Owen says that lien covers only part of the picture. He puts total losses at $3.9 million, driven by delays, rework, labor overruns, and constantly changing project demands. Adamson is not alone. A separate subcontractor, the Concrete Collective, is seeking more than $40 million in additional payment, the largest known dispute among the roughly 475 contractors who worked on the project. And a New York Post investigation published before the opening found multiple subcontractors claiming losses ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars. Lakeside Alliance offered a one-line response, the Obama Foundation pointed elsewhere Lakeside Alliance, the joint venture led by Turner Construction and four Black-owned Chicago firms, UJAMAA Construction, Powers & Sons Construction, Brown & Momen, and Safeway Construction, did not directly address Owen's allegations, the layoffs, or the $1.72 million lien. A spokesperson offered a single sentence: "Lakeside Alliance remains committed to working through all outstanding matters to successfully close out the project." The Obama Foundation, former President Barack Obama's private nonprofit, distanced itself further. It said Lakeside Alliance was responsible for managing and paying subcontractors and stated it had no outstanding disputed charges with the alliance. The foundation emphasized its payment terms: "Our commitment began with a 15-day payment cycle, which is largely unheard of in major construction projects." Neither entity explained why the $100,000 payment was late, why Owen's losses mounted over years of work, or what recourse subcontractors have beyond litigation. Owen, for his part, said he does not blame Barack Obama personally. But he made clear he holds "the ownership group" responsible. "It's become perfectly obvious to me that the ownership group there, they truthfully just don't care. I don't know any other way to say it." A $350 million project ballooned past $1 billion, and a promised reserve fund sits nearly empty The Obama Presidential Center was originally projected to cost roughly $350 million. By 2021, that figure had climbed to $830 million. Construction costs have since reportedly surpassed $1 billion. Obama personally pushed architects to expand the center's scale , a decision that contributed to the price tag's relentless growth. The Obama Foundation secured the 19.3-acre Jackson Park site through a 99-year lease requiring a one-time payment of $10. As part of the arrangement, the foundation promised a $470 million reserve fund to protect Chicago taxpayers from cost overruns. Fox News Digital's previous reporting found that only $1 million had actually been deposited into that fund. So the city got a ten-dollar lease, a promise of nearly half a billion dollars in reserve protection, and a fund that sits 99.8 percent empty. The subcontractors who built the place, meanwhile, are the ones absorbing the financial damage. The center opened June 19 to considerable fanfare. Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Bono, The Edge, Stevie Wonder, Common, Eddie Vedder, and The Roots all performed. The Obamas sat for their first joint television interview in a decade to mark the occasion. Six days later, Owen shut his company down. Contractors afraid to speak out face NDAs and professional retaliation Owen is one of the few subcontractors willing to talk publicly. An earlier Fox News investigation identified several subcontractors reporting financial trouble tied to the project, but many declined to go on the record. Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association, described the atmosphere surrounding the disputes in stark terms. "They are scared to death about talking about it." That silence is especially pointed given the project's stated mission. Lakeside Alliance was structured specifically to include Black-owned Chicago construction firms. The center was promoted as a vehicle for economic uplift on the South Side. Yet according to multiple contractors, the firms that were supposed to benefit are among those left holding unpaid invoices, and too afraid of professional retaliation and nondisclosure agreements to say so publicly. Owen drew a sharp contrast. He noted that if a figure like Elon Musk or Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin, whose name adorns the neighboring Museum of Science and Industry, had stiffed union contractors on a comparable project, the reaction would be immediate and fierce. "There would be holy h*** to pay. They would be picketing. They would be storming the castle." Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office did not respond to a request for comment. Owen noted that silence, too. "But he hasn't said anything publicly about the [union companies at the] presidential center getting stiffed. And it bothers me." Owen faces legal costs, an uncertain future, and a September reassessment Breitbart reported that the center's CEO receives a $740,000 salary, a detail that sits uncomfortably alongside the foundation's simultaneous recruitment of skilled unpaid volunteers and its failure to settle debts with the small firms that built the facility. Owen has turned the dispute over to his attorneys. He said the $1.72 million lien is just the beginning. "It doesn't mean that I'm not going to pursue the $3.9 million in change that we lost overall. I'm still working with my legal team on that $3.9 million figure because I feel that it's only right that we still hold ownership at the presidential center accountable." He acknowledged the fight will be expensive. He described himself as someone who avoids courtrooms but sees no other path forward. "I'm not a litigious person, but at the same time, our legal system is there to protect the small guy. I'm just going to have to fight this out legally from here on out, and these aren't cheap costs." For now, Owen is in limbo. He has moved out of his company's building. He plans to reassess around September. His 25 former employees are looking for work. His career, as he put it, has taken an unexpected turn. The contrast with the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library , which opened on schedule in North Dakota this summer, is hard to ignore. Presidential legacy projects can be built without leaving a trail of broken small businesses behind them. "This entire process really drained me out financially and emotionally. So that's where I'm at, just kind of in a holding pattern." A billion-dollar monument to hope and change, built on the backs of small contractors who say they were never made whole. The celebrity performers have gone home. The foundation says it's someone else's problem. And the guy who did the plumbing is working from his kitchen, waiting for September. The post Obama Presidential Center subcontractor shuts down, lays off 25 workers over $4 million payment dispute appeared first on American Almanac .