According to Forbes, the University of Chicago has been selected to be the official home of the Barack Obama Presidential Library and Museum. The proposal, selected over sites at Columbia University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, will be built in the city's South Side Hyde Park, near a home owned by the Obamas.

A frontrunner from the start, the University of Chicago was recently criticized by preservationists for its plan to use parkland to build the museum. However, as The New York Times reports, Illinois state lawmakers passed new legislation last week that ensures the library could legally be built at its suggested site.

An exact location is still unknown; Frederick Law Olmsted's Washington Park, near the University of Chicago’s main campus, and the city's Jackson Park, located on a lakefront site south of the campus, are both being considered.

Save this picture! Stony Island Avenue proposed transformation. Image © OPLSouthSide.org

The museum's next step will be to select an architect. Though the decision is typically made by the president and first lady, the Barack Obama Foundation is expected to manage a screening process and present a list of finalists to the president.

Construction on the library will start after the president ends his final term in January 2017.

News via Forbes, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, oplSouthSide.org