The suspense has been as epic as “Star Wars,” but after months of intense speculation, George Lucas’ Museum of Narrative Art on Tuesday chose Los Angeles as its home over San Francisco.
The filmmaker’s personal collection of fine and popular art, including ephemera related to his “Star Wars” franchise, will fill a futuristic-looking new museum planned for L.A.’s Exposition Park, which beat out a competing design for Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The rivalry had pitted the two cities in the competition not only for Lucas’ collection and the tourism it will bring, but also for the thousands of jobs that backers said the project will create.
Lucas has said he will fund the project to the tune of about $1 billion, including building costs, his art and an endowment of at least $400 million.
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Garcetti said the 275,000-square-foot museum will lead to tens of thousands of jobs in construction, and he estimated the number of permanent jobs created by the museum at more than a thousand — “and that’s a lowball estimate.”
“People will visit from around the world to see the original Darth Vader mask and Norman Rockwell paintings,” he said.
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Lucas, 72, has spent years trying to erect a museum for his art collection, which consists of about 10,000 paintings and illustrations including works by Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth and R. Crumb, along with Hollywood memorabilia from films such as “Star Wars” and “The Ten Commandments.” In 2009 he set his sights near his home turf in San Francisco but faced community opposition from the city’s Presidio Trust about building in the historic park. Lucas then aimed for Chicago, Hobson’s hometown, but encountered resistance from Friends of the Parks about a downtown site along Lake Michigan.
The newest proposals, both featuring designs by Chinese architect Ma Yansong, were aesthetically similar but seemingly opposite in other respects. One was a remote, four-acre site on a breezy island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, beautiful but accessible only by bridge and ferry; the other was a seven-acre location in public transit-friendly, museum-heavy Exposition Park near Lucas’ alma mater, USC.
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Exposition Park could become the Central Park of Los Angeles, Garcetti said, adding that Lucas has expressed interest in helping to guide a master plan for the swiftly evolving area, already home to the California Science Center, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California African American Museum. Plans for the new museum, which will rise along Vermont Avenue on land now covered by parking lots, will include underground parking.
“We have a new football stadium being built, the Coliseum being redone with more than $200 million in upgrades, and the science center is building a whole new building to permanently house the space shuttle and its rockets,” Garcetti said, also noting the proximity to the Expo light rail line and bus lines. The Lucas Museum, he said, “will be the jewel in the crown.”
The museum board called Exposition Park “a magnet for the region and accessible from all parts of the city.” It also cited the location “surrounded by more than 100 elementary and high schools, one of the country’s leading universities as well as three other world-class museums.”
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