Chicago took a pass on John Lucas $1 billion narrative arts museum (Burnham: apartments, condos)

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by prhill

You are right. Clearly the majority here are glad we do not have that museum.

...I can sorta see how the collection of "stuff" that Lucas had accumulated, along with his ties to some pretty interesting people who have experience with some "interactive" type things could have made for a compelling attraction.

Unfortunately the SITE really is / was an issue -- of course it is not just because of the "parking lot" but the fact that anytime you put some giant thing that truly does alter the access to the lakefront as well as messing up the views of the lakefront for not just "regular people", who really do matter, but the broader range of potential developments inland -- poorly planned land uses can result in massive loss of value that takes decades to recover from...

Beyond the site the PROCESS was absolutely HORRENDOUS. You cannot allow Rahm to "lay the parameters of a deal" with anybody over wine and cheese. That is frankly WORSE than when Ritchie unilaterally decided to carve up the Meigs Field runways. If you extend the sort of "whatever you want" BS that Rahm was willing to toss at the feet of Lucas and his lovely powerbroker wife to oh say a CASINO it would not take much to realize what sort of hotbed of graft Rahm could have created...

Had Lucas being the least bit willing to at least acknowledge that there were lessons to be learned from other Chicago museums the FOTP likely would have been willing to drop their objections but the behind-the-scenes sort of pressure from folks who have coughed up such huge money to keep other Chicago institutions from having to sell off their collections meant that FOTP was willing to "play the heavy" for an idea that came from left field and had to be massively scaled back. Lucas is notoriously detached from understanding how monetary success is not the same as truly having power...

For what it is worth there are plenty of folks in LA that have serious concerns over what will become of the venture -- The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a bad idea. Here's why

This is even more damning -- What does building George Lucas' museum at Exposition Park say about L.A.? .

It seems to promise an awkward marriage between Hollywood memorabilia and easy-to-swallow figurative art by Norman Rockwell and others. (The idea that the museum's arrival will boost L.A.'s cultural reputation is — to be plain — a joke.)

[Berteau]

The bureaucracy, lack of common sense, and corruption **** me off more than anything. We were going to turn a parking lot into a world class museum. FOTP wanted a bribe basically and they got away with it. The only people that opposed it were either corrupt, don't visit downtown or go to museums, or don't like seeing anything built.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by Berteau

The bureaucracy, lack of common sense, and corruption **** me off more than anything. We were going to turn a parking lot into a world class museum. FOTP wanted a bribe basically and they got away with it. The only people that opposed it were either corrupt, don't visit downtown or go to museums, or don't like seeing anything built.

The fee that FOTP suggested only after Rahm proposed removing the "lakeside" portion of McCormick Place, which literally would have cost over a billion in demolition as well as requiring massive re-write of the whole McPier/ Illinois Sports Authority legislation that also covers the facility where the Sox play and the recently opened basketball arena used by DePaul, was meant to ensure that at least a token amount of the revenue from the Lucas thing flowed back to the severely lacking Chicago Park District efforts to maintain existing parks...

https://www.salon.com/2016/06/27/how...to_compromise/

Mayor Emanuel made a “Hail Mary” play by proposing a second site on the lakefront where part of the city’s convention center, McCormick Place, currently lies.... Friends of the Parks offered to make a deal. They announced they would drop their lawsuit for promises that other park projects in the city were funded in the future, among other concessions.

[PerseusVeil]

Originally Posted by WRnative

The Lucas narrative arts museum would have been a major tourist attraction in Chicago. There aren't many cities that would have turned down such a $1 billion project except for extremely good planning and aesthetic reasons. Where any politicians involved in blocking the project? Have they experienced any push-back?

Chicago didn't turn it down. Rahm fought until the bitter end to get the thing, but the fact of the matter is that the Friends of the Parks were going to get their day in court and George Lucas wasn't willing to deal with that hassle.

Lucas was dead set on the lakefront, Rahm thought he would have the clout to steamroll any opposition (he didn't), and the FotP cleared their first legal challenges. It was going to be a drawn out ordeal.

Originally Posted by WRnative

What other sites were offered? Do you have any discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these sites? Is it possible that Lucas didn't pick the Soldier Field parking lot site, but that the city wanted the museum built there for some reason?

The parking lot was his #1 choice. Hell, Rahm even tried to tear down the lakeside portion of McCormick Place (which would have cost the city dearly) in order to keep the project near the Museum Campus where Lucas wanted it.

[OyCrumbler]

Would’ve been nice had it been built over the Metra Electric tracks adjacent to the parking lot with the museum campus serving as a pedestrian bridge between the neighborhood and the park and the parking lot converted to green space. It would have been expensive, but this design already incorporates some height.

[edsg25]

Not like we would have been getting in the same league or same caliber as the Field, MSI, Shedd, Adler, Art Intit, or CHM. Would have been nice, but necessarily a biggie

As for "taking a pass", it surprises me no one on the SF/Oak forum didn't put a "San Francisco takes a pass on Lucas museum, so now it's going to Chicago" thread on the board

[dtcbnd03]

Thank you to FOTP for blocking the Lucas Museum. You can't make the argument that "it's a parking lot!" cause the parking lot should have never been built there anyways. Two wrongs don't make a right. I love the museum campus but it could have easily been built off the lakefront...same is true with Lucas Museum. He coulda built that anywhere. The lakefront is for the people...and people like Montgomery Ward have been fighting that fight for decades. My hats off to them for preserving it....cause it kinda sucks that there's no beaches south of Navy Pier for MILES

Remember...tourists also visit Chicago for the lakefront!!! Look at how many people you see strolling / running / visiting along the lake and Millenium / Grant Park!

[Vlajos]

Yeah and tourists pack into our museums on the lakefront. Helping us take in millions in sales taxes.

[dtcbnd03]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Yeah and tourists pack into our museums on the lakefront. Helping us take in millions in sales taxes.

Museum's can still be set off 100 yards from the actual start of the public lakefront and still be lakefront with a nice green space in front of it and then the actual lake. Plus if people want to go to Museums they want to go to museums...not cause they're on the lake. After all museums are indoors. If museum campus was set up closer inland near public transportation with nice parks built around it then it would be even more popular cause people could actually get there easier. It would be a win/win for the lakefront and museum visitors.

[WRnative]

The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg houses a private collection.

Originally, the collection was offered to the Cleveland Museum of Art on the condition that it build a separate building to house the collection. The CMA, one of the nation's wealthiest, certainly had the financial resources to accommodate the request. Yet it didn't want to waive the right of deaccension and worried about a single artist overshadowing its encyclopedic collection, so it took a pass.

Step into Salvador Dali's mind in Florida, discover Cleveland connection

The St. Petersburg museum now attracts 400,000 visitors annually.

The Dali Museum Turns Economic Impact Into An Art Form - Salvador Dali Museum Salvador Dali Museum

Smart decision on the CMA's part? Some still say yes.

IMO, Chicago has made a similar and perhaps even more fateful decision with the Lucas museum, albeit at least part of Chicago's decision was over a desire to preserve the lakefront as a future park and to protect Lake Michigan vistas.

Critics of the Lucas museum suggest that narrative art is a made-up category, but this seems specious when one considers that special effect films and gaming are major art forms globally, yet rarely the object of any collection efforts at major museums. It seems very possible IMO that the Lucas museum will find a popular and worthwhile niche, my only question being how much it will be able to incorporate the often commercially valuable narrative art being produced globally. E.g., will Disney's Marvel division support the Lucas Museum's efforts? Perhaps more likely given that Lucas sold his Lucasfilm and its subsidiaries to Disney.

If Lucas can become the center archival institution of "narrative arts," akin to the Baseball Hall of Fame or the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame, it would seem to have the possibility to eclipse one or more of the now leading cultural attractions in Chicago.

Modern narrative art as incorporated in film, gaming, etc., seems vastly different than the digital media art and even performance art that some art museums are beginning to collect. Will mankind later in this century and forward create personal narrative art with the same ease than many today paint as a hobby?

Build it and they will come. In Chicago's case, it was allow it to be built and they will come.... The reward/risk ratio for Chicago was phenomenal.