Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg

97 F.4th 1077

PROTECT OUR PARKS, INC., et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Pete BUTTIGIEG, Secretary of Transportation, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 22-3190

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Argued October 24, 2023

Decided April 8, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:21-cv-02006 — John Robert Blakey, Judge.

Richard Epstein, Attorney, Norwalk, CT, Thomas G. Gardiner, Catherine M. Keenan, Attorneys, Gardiner Koch Weisberg & Wrona, Chicago, IL, Michael Rachlis, Attorney, Rachlis, Duff, Adler & Peel LLC, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Allen M. Brabender, Attorney, Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, for Defendants-Appellees Pete Buttigieg, Stephanie Pollack, Arlene Kocher, Matt Fuller, Deb Haaland, Shawn Benge, Paul B. Cullberson, Christine Wormuth.

Myriam Z. Kasper, Attorney, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, Elizabeth Tisher, Attorney, City of Chicago Law Department, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee City of Chicago.

Joseph P. Roddy, Elizabeth M. Pall, Attorneys, Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, P.C., Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee Chicago Park District.

Tacy Fletcher Flint, David H. Hoffman, Attorneys, Sidley Austin LLP, Chicago, IL, Peter R. Steenland, Jr., Attorney, Sidley Austin LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendant-Appellee Barack Obama Foundation.

Randall E. Mehrberg, Attorney, Jenner & Block LLP, Chicago, IL, for Amici Curiae Adler Planetarium, Art Institute of Chicago, Bronzeville Children's Museum, Chicago Academy of Sciences/Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago Architecture Center.

Craig C. Martin, Attorney, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Chicago, IL, for Amici Curiae Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, Chicago Urban League, Chicago Community Trust.

Kenneth L. Schmetterer, Attorney, DLA Piper LLP, Chicago, IL, for Amicus Curiae University of Chicago.

Mary Eileen Cunniff Wells, Attorney, Miller Shakman Levine & Feldman LLP, Chicago, IL, for Amicus Curiae Community Representatives.

Before Rovner, Wood, and Hamilton, Circuit Judges.

Wood, Circuit Judge.

This appeal represents, we hope, the final installment in the long-running challenge led by a group called Protect Our Parks, Inc. ("POP"), which strenuously objects to the location of the planned Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. See Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Chicago Park Dist., 971 F.3d 722 (7th Cir. 2020) ("POP I"), cert. denied sub nom. Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. City of Chicago, — U.S. —, 141 S. Ct. 2583, — L.Ed.2d — (2021); Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 10 F.4th 758 (7th Cir. 2021) (per curiam) ("POP II"); Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 39 F.4th 389 (7th Cir. 2022) ("POP III"). Throughout the present phase of the case, the Center has been under construction. But the rub is this: it is rising in a corner of Chicago's historic Jackson Park on a site selected by the Barack Obama Foundation. POP contends that Jackson Park should have been off-limits, and it insists that the Center easily could have been placed elsewhere. Raising a bevy of arguments—seven based on federal law, eight on state law—all seeking to prevent the construction of the Center in Jackson Park, POP and its co-plaintiffs sued numerous state and federal defendants. (We refer to the plaintiffs collectively as POP unless the context requires otherwise.) Construction is now well underway, and the Center is expected to be completed in late 2025.

Earlier adverse rulings from this court, plus the on-the-ground reality of the construction, have not deterred POP. Most recently, it asked us to enjoin construction until the courts resolve its federal-law theories. But it failed to make the requisite showing that it was likely to succeed with those contentions, and so we declined to grant the preliminary injunction it sought. See POP III, 39 F.4th at 397. In the meantime, the district court refused POP's request to amend its pleadings and dismissed the state-law causes of action. At the request of the parties, the district court then awarded summary judgment against POP on the federal-law theories.

POP has now asked us to overturn the district court's final judgment in its entirety. In support of its federal-law theories, it presents the identical factual record that we reviewed in POP III, supported by the same arguments. Those arguments remain unpersuasive. Moreover, we have identified no legal error in our earlier analysis of POP's case, and so we stand by that decision. We also conclude that POP's state-law theories were rightly dismissed and that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied POP's motion to amend the complaint. In summary, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

Although this ground has been well trodden, we review the underlying facts and the course of the litigation for the convenience of those who do not wish to track down and re-read our earlier decisions.

A. The Proposed Locations for the Center

In March 2014, the Barack Obama Foundation ("the Foundation"), a private not-for-profit organization, initiated a nationwide search for a future home for the Obama Presidential Center ("the Center"), a presidential library that would honor the work and legacy of the 44th president. Various organizations around the country and in Chicago recommended potential sites for the Center.

The University of Chicago proposed two locations near its campus: one in Washington Park and another in Jackson Park. Both are historic public parks in Chicago's South Side; the latter is a 551-acre park that sits in the Hyde Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods where President Obama once lived, worked, and began his public career. The Foundation eventually ranked these potential sites as two of its top three choices for the future location of the Center and communicated its assessment to the City of Chicago ("City").

In 2015, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance ("the 2015 Ordinance") in which it expressed its "robust commitment to bringing the Presidential Center to Chicago." The City Council determined that the Center would "expand the City's cultural resources, promote economic development, strengthen surrounding communities, . . . and serve other important public purposes." The 2015 Ordinance described several possible locations for the Center, including the Jackson Park site that the University of Chicago had proposed. That site is a 19.3-acre portion of parkland that lies on the western edge of Jackson Park, bounded on the north by Midway Plaisance Drive North, on the east by South Cornell Drive, on the south by East Hayes Drive, and on the west by Stony Island Avenue.

The 2015 Ordinance did not authorize any kind of development. It stated only that "the City will introduce a separate ordinance authorizing the development, construction and operation of the" Center on whatever site was chosen. But to achieve the "public purpose of facilitating the location, development, construction and operation of" the Center, the 2015 Ordinance authorized the City to accept a transfer of the proposed portion of Jackson Park from the Chicago Park District ("the Park District") if the Foundation settled on that site.

The Park District had held Jackson Park in the public trust since 1934, when a law passed by the Illinois General Assembly took effect. That law consolidated all existing parkland that lay entirely or partly within the territorial boundaries of Chicago and created the Park District to manage it. See 70 ILCS 1505/1. (The Park District later lost authority over parkland outside Chicago's corporate limits, but that change has no effect on our case. See id. 1505/1a.) Before the 1934 legislation, the parkland was held by the South Park Commission, which had been created in 1869 with the authority to select certain lands that would "be held, managed and controlled by them and their successors as a public park, for the recreation, health, and benefit of the public, and free to all persons forever[.]" 1 LAWS OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 1869, at 360. In addition to enjoying the status of public-trust land since it was acquired by the South Park Commissioners, Jackson Park has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972 for, among other things, serving as part of the grounds for the 1893 Columbian Exposition.

Shortly after the City passed the 2015 Ordinance, the General Assembly amended the Park District Aquarium and Museum Act. See 70 ILCS 1290/1 ("Museum Act"). The amendment, which became effective on January 1, 2016, allows cities and park districts to build museums, including presidential centers, in their public parks. Id. It also authorizes cities and park districts to contract out the construction, maintenance, and operation of those museums to private entities organized for that purpose. Id. Finally, the amended Museum Act "reaffirmed" the General Assembly's view that museums "serve valuable public purposes[.]" Id.

B. The Selection of Jackson Park as the Site

After evaluating its options, the Foundation selected Jackson Park as its preferred site for the Center. It then submitted a specific proposal to the Chicago Plan Commission to build the Center at that location. Along with the proposal, the Foundation applied for the various permits and approvals needed to undertake the development. According to the plans, the Center will include four buildings and an underground parking facility, all situated on a campus at the northwestern edge of the park. It will feature a museum, a branch of the Chicago public library, spaces for cultural and educational events, athletic spaces, green space, and an archive commemorating the lives and legacies of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. In its proposal, the Foundation offered to cover all costs associated with the Center's construction.

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