Viral News
A Chicago-based subcontractor has filed a $40 million lawsuit against one of the firms overseeing construction of the Obama Presidential Center, claiming racial discrimination forced the company into financial ruin.
Robert McGee, owner of II in One, which has provided concrete and rebar services for the project since 2021, filed the federal lawsuit last month against New York-based Thornton Tomasetti. The engineering firm handles structural engineering and design services for the $830 million center.
According to the suit, Thornton Tomasetti changed standards and imposed new requirements for rebar spacing and tolerance that went beyond American Concrete Institute guidelines. McGee argues these modifications resulted in “excessively rigorous and unnecessary inspection,” driving up costs substantially.
The lawsuit states that the extra paperwork severely reduced productivity and caused millions of dollars in losses for his company.
Thornton Tomasetti pushed back in a memo from nearly a year ago, describing the subcontractors as “questionably qualified” and attributing delays to their own inadequacies.
The Obama Presidential Center is under construction near Jackson Park in Chicago and will feature a museum, library, and community and conference facilities. The complex will also serve as headquarters for the nonprofit Obama Foundation, which oversees the development and operates a scholarship program through the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.
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McGee alleges that Thornton Tomasetti falsely claimed II in One lacked proper qualifications and experience while maintaining that non-minority-owned contractors were sufficiently qualified.
He’s requesting reimbursement for roughly $40 million in construction expenses that his firm, together with joint venture partner Concrete Collective, paid out of pocket.
“In a shocking and disheartening turn of events, the African American owner of a local construction company finds himself and his company on the brink of forced closure because of racial discrimination by the structural engineer,” the lawsuit states. “II in One and its joint venture partners… was subjected to baseless criticisms and defamatory and discriminatory accusations by the Obama Foundation’s structural engineer, Thornton Tomasetti.”
Thornton Tomasetti responded in a February 2024 memo that construction costs and delays “were all unequivocally driven by the underperformance and inexperience” of II in One. The firm included photos showing a cracked slab and exposed rebar as evidence.
In the memo, Thornton Tomasetti told Obama Foundation leadership it spent hundreds of hours reviewing, analyzing, redesigning, and handling corrective work, saying the contractors were responsible for “a multitude of problems in the field.”
The engineering firm maintained that concrete issues stemmed entirely from contractor performance. “We cannot stand by while contractors attempt to blame their own shortcomings on the design team,” the memo reads.
It continues by stating that Thornton Tomasetti and an architectural firm “bent over backwards to assist what everyone knows was a questionably qualified subcontractor team in areas where more qualified subcontractor would not have required it.”
The project has encountered multiple obstacles. Construction, initially planned to start in 2018, didn’t begin until 2021 and is now expected to open in 2026.
Community activists have expressed worries that the new center will increase housing and rental costs, potentially pushing out many longtime residents. Environmental advocates have also opposed the project, contending it would destroy too many trees and damage bird habitats.
Despite activists threatening legal action to stop the development, officials approved the center’s construction shortly after a lawsuit was filed. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 2021.
