The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation, this past week, approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project.

Fundraising will be a central challenge: historical construction costs range from roughly $43 million for the George H.W. Bush library to about $165 million for the Bill Clinton library, with George W. Bush 's team meeting a $500-million goal; the Obama Foundation has pursued a roughly $1.6-billion goal for its Chicago center, it noted.

The exact site for the center has not been chosen, but the 46th president has a close affiliation with the University of Delaware.