Star Wars’ George Lucas Can’t Find A Home For His $1.5 Billion Museum

Save all your “It belongs in a museum!” jokes, folks…for the moment, it looks like you won’t be needing them.

George Lucas is still having a hard time finding a home for a proposed $1.5 billion museum which he will pay to construct, celebrating the history of film, comics, and other “narrative art.”

Last year, Lucas pulled the plug on plans to put the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago.

At the time, Lucas issued a statement saying that he had given up on waiting for the resolution of a conflict between Chicago’s City Hall and Friends of the Parks, an interest group that has objected to both of the proposed sites for the museum.

Frends of the Parks had objected to Lucas’s plans to construct the museum on Chicago’s lakefront; the first proposal was a location currently being used by a parking lot, where football fans hang out and tailgate. The second was the current home to the Lakeside Center at McCormick Place.

“In light of extensive delays caused by FOTP, Chicago no longer will be considered a potential site,” said a statement from the Lucas Museum planners.

“No one benefits from continuing [FOTP’s] seemingly unending litigation to protect a parking lot,” Lucas himself was quoted as saying.

Lucas had hoped instead to locate the museum on the West Coast, either in Los Angeles or San Francisco, but so far, he’s having a hard time finding a community that wants to take on the project.

At this point, Lucas has failed to find a home for the museum in Chicago, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, using at least three different designs. The critiques against his massive undertaking have ranged from the building’s location to its design to its intent, with some critics feeling that a massive museum for popular art is not a worthwhile endeavor.

“It’s an epic act of generosity and altruism,” says Don Bacigalupi, the museum effort’s president. “George Lucas, as with any person of great resources and great success, could choose to do whatever he wants to do with his resources, and he has chosen to give an extraordinary gift to the people of a city and the world.”

h/t Bloomberg