George Lucas to open $1-billion "Star Wars" museum in LA

PanARMENIAN.Net - For months, “Star Wars” creator George Lucas held the art world in suspense: Would he put his $1-billion Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles or San Francisco?

On Tuesday came the answer, The Los Angeles Times reveals.

Lucas’ 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.

The Lucas Museum will further expand the art museum landscape in greater L.A., which has become a global hot spot for art production.

“It feels like this incredible gift has come home. I always thought Los Angeles was the natural place to spread the vision of George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, to make art and creativity accessible and inspirational to the next generation,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said of the filmmaker and his wife. “It’s a natural place to have this museum in the creative capital of the world and in the geographic center of the city. It’s a banner day for L.A.”

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.