Chicago lost the Lucas Museum. Watching it open in L.A. stings

There are some missed opportunities you can shrug off. Then there are the ones that keep nagging at you. For me, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is one of those.

This week, George Lucas and Mellody Hobson’s $1 billion museum opens to the public in Los Angeles, and while I’m happy for them and genuinely excited to see what they have created, I can’t help thinking about the museum that could have/should have been right here in Chicago.

Yes, I know there were legitimate concerns about the proposed lakefront site. And yes, Chicago’s lakefront is precious and deserves to be protected. But somewhere along the way, I think we lost sight of the bigger picture.

Chicago had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to land a major privately funded cultural institution created by one of the most influential filmmakers in the world, with his wife, a Chicago-loving native, at his side. We had the chance to add another destination to the Museum Campus and create an attraction that could have brought visitors, jobs, spending and international attention to the city.

Instead, we fought over where it could go until George Lucas finally went somewhere else. And now we get to watch it open in Los Angeles.

The Lucas Museum opens tomorrow, September 22 in Exposition Park, in a 300,000-square-foot building designed by architect Ma Yansong. The campus includes 100,000 square feet of gallery space, a 13-acre park and gardens, theaters, a research library and a restaurant. The collection spans everything from prehistoric cave art and classic illustration to comics, murals, film and, naturally, plenty of Star Wars history.

It is not simply a Star Wars museum, which is an important distinction. Lucas and Hobson created an institution devoted to visual storytelling, with works by artists including Frida Kahlo, Norman Rockwell, Diego Rivera and Banksy alongside popular and cinematic art.

That combination of serious art, pop culture, film and storytelling feels particularly suited to Chicago, a city that has always had a complicated and wonderful relationship with art, architecture, movies, advertising, design and big ideas.

And imagine the location. The original Chicago proposal called for a site south of Soldier Field, creating another major destination along the lakefront and connecting naturally with the Museum Campus. At the time, supporters argued that the museum could attract nearly 1 million visitors and generate billions in visitor spending over its first decade, although those figures were projections rather than guarantees. The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce estimated the project could have created thousands of construction jobs and more than 350 permanent jobs.

There was also the possibility of pairing the museum with improvements around McCormick Place. At one point, a compromise was discussed that would have replaced the McCormick Place Lakeside Center with a new facility, created additional park space and accommodated the Lucas Museum. The idea was that Chicago could address several longstanding lakefront and convention-center issues while gaining the museum.

That is the part that really gets me. We didn't lose the museum because there wasn't a possible solution. We lost it because the solution never came together quickly enough.

Friends of the Parks challenged the Chicago plan in court, arguing that the proposed development conflicted with protections governing lakefront land. Lucas and Hobson ultimately abandoned the Chicago plan in 2016 after roughly two years of litigation.

And now, look at what Los Angeles did. L.A. found a place where the museum could fit into an existing cultural campus, alongside institutions including the Natural History Museum, California Science Center and California African American Museum, with USC nearby. City officials worked directly with the museum team to coordinate approvals and infrastructure rather than allowing the project to become bogged down indefinitely.

The result is a spectacular new cultural destination rising from what had been an asphalt parking lot. The Lucas Museum's new 13-acre landscape includes more than 300 trees, gardens, an amphitheater and public gathering spaces.

Meanwhile, here in Chicago, the lakefront site that had been proposed for the museum remains a parking lot.

I am a Chicagoan through and through and I celebrate the cultural treasures we have but I also believe we missed an opportunity to add something meaningful to the city we love. I can't help thinking Chicago should have tried harder to make a different ending possible.

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