The long-awaited museum of Star Wars creator George Lucas is coming to Los Angeles, it was announced today.

The board of directors of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art said L.A. beat out San Francisco to host the venue. It will be built in Exposition Park, home of the Natural History Museum, the California African American Museum and the California Science Center.

The area, which is under federal Promise Zone funding, “best positions the museum to have the greatest impact on the broader community, fulfilling our goal of inspiring, engaging and educating a broad and diverse viewership,” according to a statement from the museum's board.

A Bay Area location would have been closer to the director's Skywalker Ranch home in Marin County. However, it should be noted that he attended film school at USC, which will be right next door to the new venue. He's become a mutlimillion-dollar donor for the university.

Another view of the design; Credit: Courtesy LMNA

Another view of the design; Credit: Courtesy LMNA

The museum is expected to house works by Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth. It's also slated to show off storyboards, props and other memorabilia from Hollywood.

Its development costs have been projected at $1 billion. The board has promised “a global destination that all Angelenos and Californians will be proud to call their own.”

“L.A. is gaining a new jewel with the breathtaking Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, and its presence here means that a day at Exposition Park will soon bring unrivaled opportunities to be immersed in stories told on canvas and celluloid, be moved by the richness of African-American history and expression,
be awed by the wonders of science and the natural world, take a journey to the world of space exploration and sit in the stands for a world-class sporting event,” according to Mayor Eric Garcetti.

—With reporting from City News Service

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