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Federal Reviews of Obama Center Scheduled

  Further studies of the park that's the future home of the Obama Presidential Center are expected to start this week.

The center is planned for Jackson Park, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. It's on Chicago's South Side along Lake Michigan.

     Federal reviews are needed before construction starts. There's a meeting Friday in Chicago to study potential impacts.

     Charles Birnbaum is president and CEO of the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation and says the review is the "first time to think holistically about the park."

     The center is supposed to take up over 20 acres of the park.

     A spokesman for Mayor Rahm Emanuel called the review "routine." Emanuel was a onetime White House chief of staff under Obama.