A veteran real estate developer and friend of former President Barack Obama is vying to build a 26-story hotel blocks away from the incoming Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park. The developer, Allison Davis, submitted a rezoning application to City Council last week for a parcel of vacant land he owns at 6402-20 S. Stony Island Avenue. The plot, currently zoned for a community shopping district, needs council approval to get rezoned as a planned business development, clearing the way for the hotel’s construction. Davis is an attorney who co-founded the law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, where Obama...