George Lucas may live and work up here in the Bay Area, but we learned today that, after months of going back and forth on the location for his new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, the museum will be setting up shop in Los Angeles.
It seemed that the Treasure Island site was a strong contender to get the museum right up until the last moment. In a press release, the board of directors noted that, "Settling on a location proved to be an extremely difficult decision precisely because of the desirability of both sites and cities."
Lucas got so far as having his architect draw up designs for how the museum might fit on the Bay-side location and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee waged quite a campaign to woo the museum to town, but in the end, the $23 million price tag associated with the S.F. land just couldn’t compete with a deal they were able to strike to lease the seven-acre plot in Los Angeles for just $20 a year.
This is actually the second time the Lucas Museum has ditched S.F. right when it seemed like we were on the cusp on sealing the deal. Back in 2014, the original plan had the museum set to build on a site in the Presidio, until final negotiations broke down and Lucas decided to move on (that time to Chicago, where things would end up breaking down all over again).
Apparently, without the Lucas Museum coming to town, we'll just have to content ourselves with all the great museums we already have.
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