Obama Presidential Center to have star-studded grand opening Thursday : NPR

Former President Barack Obama (R) speaks next to former first lady Michelle Obama at an event at the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on June 16.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AFP via Getty Images

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Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AFP via Getty Images

Nearly a decade in the making, the Obama Presidential Center will have a star-studded dedication ceremony Thursday.

The grand opening, which will host “global leaders, artists, changemakers, and citizens,” will feature musical performances and appearances by Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera and John Legend, among others.

Every living president will be in attendance except one: President Trump. During a press preview in early June, longtime Obama White House aide and current CEO of the Obama Foundation Valerie Jarrett said Trump is welcome to visit the museum and they’d love to give him a tour. She said he simply was not invited to the dedication.

“I can tell you that this is a celebration for those who helped get President Obama where he is. And this is a gift to them,” Jarrett said. “And so the people who will be here are the people who’ve been helpful along the way.”

The center itself is a more-than-19-acre space on the south side of Chicago that describes itself as a campus and features a towering museum that curators envision influencing change and offering hope. It presents a close look at what life was like in the Obama White House. 

The campus also houses a branch of the Chicago Public Library, as well as an NBA regulation-size basketball court and a Women’s Garden, created in tribute to female leaders in Chicago. It also has an auditorium, a media suite that visitors can use, a Wetland Walk and a fruit and vegetable garden and a playground. 

The center’s messaging centered around hope and change is represented in its days-long opening weekend, which starts with star studded performances on Thursday and is followed on Friday by the museum’s opening to the public.

It is not, though, a presidential library and it will not house the former president’s presidential documents. Those documents are in the largely digital Barack Obama Presidential Library run by the National Archives. The center does have some records and artifacts on display in its museum on loan.