George Lucas Might Announce Pick of LA or San Francisco for His $1 Billion Museum this Month

LOS ANGELES - With the new year comes new hope Tuesday that Los Angeles will be named the home of filmmaker George Lucas' Museum of Narrative Art.

Lucas has proposed two possible sites -- Exposition Park and Treasure Island in San Francisco -- and plans to fully fund the construction and endowment for the museum, which will house his extensive art collection.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who made another public pitch Tuesday for the Exposition Park location, said "we have been working very hard behind the scenes" to try and land the museum. He said he expects Lucas to make a decision by the end of the month.

The entire philanthropic gift from Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, has been valued at more than $1 billion.

"(Los Angeles) is the natural place. This is the creative capital of the world," Garcetti said. "This is where you can contact more people from around the world."

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas has said the museum would bring 1,500 construction jobs and another 350 permanent jobs to Los Angeles.

The museum will house works by painters such as Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer and Pierre-Auguste Renior; illustrations, comic art and photography by artists such as Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth; as well as storyboards, props and other items from popular films, all in an effort to create a "barrier-free museum" where "artificial divisions between `high' art and `popular' art are absent," according to the museum's website.

Lucas is best known for creating the "Star Wars" film franchise, producing the "Indiana Jones" franchise and founding Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects company.

The filmmaker has connections to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. He has been a longtime resident of the Bay Area, where Industrial Light & Magic is located, and attended film school at USC, which is adjacent to Exposition Park. In 2015, he donated $10 million to his alma mater.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in November cast a symbolic vote urging Lucas to choose Los Angeles as the museum's home.

"Now it is up to them to decide where they want to be, but it is clear there is community support for this and there has been from the beginning and we would be very, very excited to land this museum should it be here," Garcetti said.

City News Service; Images courtesy of the Lucas' Museum of Narrative Art