“Star Wars” creator George Lucas is again looking at San Francisco to host his museum.
Lucas is considering a site on Treasure Island, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.
Lucas has started searching for a new site after two Chicago lakefront spots for the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art have been opposed by Friends of the Parks.
Lucas’ wife, Mellody Hobson, issued an emotional statement earlier this month that all but threw in the towel after Friends of the Parks declared its opposition to a McCormick Place site for the futuristic structure and threatened another lawsuit.
“We are now seriously pursuing locations outside of Chicago,” Hobson said. “If the museum is forced to leave, it will be because of the Friends of the Parks and that is no victory for anyone. . . . As an African American who has spent my entire life in this city I love, it saddens me that young black and brown children will be denied the chance to benefit from what this museum will offer. . . . In refusing to accept the extraordinary public benefits of the museum, the Friends of the Parks has proven itself to be no friend of Chicago.”
Lucas’ hometown of San Francisco already rejected an earlier proposal after the director and philanthropist sought to put the museum housing his personal art collection and other artifacts on a picturesque Presidio site.
But then San Francisco’s mayor lobbied him to come back, according to the Chronicle, and the new site they’ve discussed is already approved for development and will present far fewer legal hurdles.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has tried numerous legal options to land the museum in Chicago.
On Sunday, mayoral spokeswoman Shannon Breymaier declined to say whether the renewed interest by San Francisco in fact sounded a death knell for the museum in Chicago.
In an email, she repeated the mayor’s position that it would be “a cultural, educational and economic asset to Chicago residents and visitors.
“As Mellody Hobson stated recently, the Museum will go elsewhere if the misguided lawsuit filed by Friends of the Parks is not quickly settled or dismissed,” she wrote.
