One of ex-President Barack Obama's friends is being criticized for her plan to build a hotel near the yet-to-be-completed Obama Presidential Center. 

Newsweek reports that the criticism is being aimed at Allison Davis, who leads the Aquinnah Investment Trust company, which is planning to build the hotel in Chicago, Illinois.

First, we'll take a look at Davis' plan, then we'll look at the criticism of it.

The Chicago Plan Commission approved on Thursday a plan by a veteran developer to plant a 26-story hotel several blocks south of the Obama Presidential Center, now under construction in Woodlawn.https://t.co/78ZnvbBoWp

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) August 22, 2025

Here are the details:

Newsweek provides some of the details of the hotel proposal.

It writes:

The 303-foot hotel would have 250 rooms, shops and offices, a swimming pool, 118 car parking spaces and 12 bicycle parking spaces according to planning documents. It would also rezone an affordable housing complex next to Island Terrace.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the plan to build the hotel was recently approved by the Chicago Plan Commission.

Per the outlet:

The Chicago Plan Commission approved on Thursday a plan by a veteran developer to plant a 26-story hotel several blocks south of the Obama Presidential Center, now under construction in Woodlawn. The $100 million tower at 6402 S. Stony Island Ave. will fill in vacant lots, provide badly needed jobs to Woodlawn residents, and help ensure some of the money spent by the Obama center’s thousands of annual visitors stays in the community, said Allison Davis, the lawyer and developer who has owned the property for years.

Not everyone, though, is as enthusiastic about the plan.

Here's what the critics are saying:

Newsweek reports on how some are protesting the hotel proposal.

The outlet writes:

Dixon Romeo, an organizer with the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, told NBC: "When you can fast-track a luxury hotel — while everyone around that hotel lives in blight, knowing that that'll raise the price to push them out — you're intentionally trying to gentrify a neighborhood."

Newsweek goes on to report on public criticism that was sent to the commission before it approved the proposal.

It continues:

Two residents, Sanya Bhartiya and Rebeca Velasquez, sent identical emails that said: "A luxury hotel in the neighborhood would worsen issues that community members have already been vocal about by attracting more predatory developers to the area, raising the cost of living, and pricing more people out of the neighborhood."

It is not just laymen either. Newsweek reports that some experts have concerns about the project as well. Nonetheless, the project got the green light.