{"id":640639,"date":"2026-07-24T13:18:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=640639"},"modified":"2026-07-24T13:18:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T13:18:31","slug":"chicago-contractors-business-shutters-amid-legal-battle-with-obama-center-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=640639","title":{"rendered":"Chicago contractor\u2019s business shutters amid legal battle with Obama Center debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

An unpaid subcontractor who worked on the Obama Presidential Center has shuttered his company to avoid bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

Chicago businessman Mike Owen, the owner of Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News<\/a> that fallout from the center\u2019s nonpayment forced him to abandon other construction jobs and left his company on the brink of collapse.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in our industry wants to do,\u201d Owen said. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard thing to do, especially when you know you can finish them and the company can still make money. But we were put in a pretty bad corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen first went viral last month when he began speaking out publicly about how his company was \u201ccrushed\u201d by taking on the Obama Presidential Center project:<\/p>\n

\n

\"\ud83d\udea8\" OBAMA CENTER SUBCONTRACTOR: \u201cWe\u2019re crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\ud83d\udccd\"On the ground in Chicago, Mike Owen told me his company is nearly $4 million in the red \"\ud83d\udfe5\" after working on the Obama Presidential Center.<\/p>\n

\"\ud83d\udcac\" \u201cI feel like an aluminum can that\u2019s been thrown in front of a steamroller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\ud83d\udcb0\" \u201cOur\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/sKB1TZkPxN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Michael Dorgan (@M_Dorgan) June 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Before the center had even opened, Owen\u2019s company had already accrued\u00a0$3.9 million in losses linked to delays, rework, labor overruns, and constantly changing project demands.<\/p>\n

According to Fox News, he spent months negotiating with Lakeside Alliance. The Obama Foundation confirmed to FactCheck.org<\/a> that Lakeside is the construction project manager that has the \u201cprimary responsibility\u201d to \u201chire and manage all the subcontractors for the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen told Fox News that his breaking point came right when the center opened, and his company and Lakeside Alliance agreed that he\u2019d provide two journeyman plumbers to perform some last-minute \u201chousekeeping\u201d at a premium nighttime rate.<\/p>\n

After the work was performed, Lakeside told Owen that a $100,000 payment would be released through his company\u2019s payment application. There was just one problem. The payment didn\u2019t arrive on time, forcing him to shut down operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe negotiated it in good faith,\u201d Owen said. \u201cAgainst my better judgment, I agreed [to do the work]. Not getting that large sum of money just kind of pulled the brakes on the train. It was just the final death blow to the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than try to stretch it out and go bankrupt, I just decided the responsible thing was to shut it down. We\u2019ll regroup, and we\u2019ll see where we\u2019re at come September,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n

OWEN: WE\u2019RE LOSING ON LABOR<\/p>\n

Mike Owen, the President and Owner of Adamson Plumbing, says the Obama Center project has stretched far beyond its original timeline, creating major cost pressures. pic.twitter.com\/bPn69idLKp<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 The Faulkner Focus (@FaulknerFocus) June 22, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The only good news is that the money eventually arrived, albeit two whole weeks after he\u2019d already suspended operations. But it was already too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like too little, too late,\u201d he said. \u201cIt probably would have just prolonged the inevitable at this point. We\u2019re still deep in the hole of what they owe us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ever since the company was shuttered, Adamson has moved out of its original headquarters, and Owen is now working from home. Meanwhile, his company has\u00a0fought back by filing a $1.72 million mechanic\u2019s lien against the Obama Presidential Center.<\/p>\n

Fox News notes, however, that the lien is smaller than the $3.9 million that Owen has alleged his company lost because of the center. In defending the $3.9 million amount, Owen said he wanted to target what Fox News describes as the \u201cmost readily documented\u201d costs, \u201cincluding unpaid fees, logged change orders and labor overruns supported by company records.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m not going to pursue the $3.9 million in change that we lost overall,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019m still working with my legal team on that $3.9 million figure because I feel that it\u2019s only right that we still hold ownership at the presidential center accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a litigious person, but at the same time, our legal system is there to protect the small guy. I\u2019m just going to have to fight this out legally from here on out, and these aren\u2019t cheap costs,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An unpaid subcontractor who worked on the Obama Presidential Center has shuttered his company to avoid bankruptcy. Chicago businessman Mike Owen, the owner of Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News that fallout from the center\u2019s nonpayment forced him to abandon other construction jobs and left his company on the brink of collapse. \u201cLaying off close… Continue reading Chicago contractor\u2019s business shutters amid legal battle with Obama Center debacle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":640640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-border-security","category-immigration","category-immigration-reform","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=640639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/640640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=640639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=640639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=640639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}