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30-day pause in Lucas lawsuit

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Illinois

Friends of the Parks has suspended its lawsuit against the proposed Lucas Museum on Chicago’s lakefront, the group announced Tuesday.

The nonprofit group, which has blocked the push by “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and Mayor Rahm Emanuel to build an arts museum near Soldier Field, said in a news release that the stay “gives all parties the opportunity to have a more direct and productive dialogue to reach a potential solution about a museum site.”

It said it has informed U.S. District Court Judge John Darrah of its decision but added that it could restart its lawsuit, if necessary. City officials asked the group to halt its lawsuit and the group said it agreed “because the city is now prioritizing another site” for the museum.

The suspension is only for 30 days.

* The Sun-Times has more, including the list of demands…

* Active and serious investigation of other possible non-lakefront sites that include the Michael Reese Hospital site acquired by former Mayor Richard M. Daley as the site of an Olympic Village before Chicago’s first-round flame-out in the 2016 Olympics sweepstakes, an 18th Street site across from the Soldier Field site, and the marshalling yards for trucks and recreational vehicles west of McCormick Place.
* A “strong grasp of the impact” the Lucas museum would have on “jobs, particularly for South Side residents, tourism and the economic in general, taxes and other costs to Chicago residents and educational benefits.”
* “Clear specifics” about any proposed site and plan that promises to generate the most viability and create more park space for residents and visitors.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported exclusively in mid-April that Emanuel has shifted his focus from Soldier Field’s south parking lot to the site of McCormick Place East to avoid a protracted legal battle over the Soldier Field site and satisfy Lucas’ demand to get moving on the legacy project.

Emanuel’s plan calls for tearing down the above-ground portion of McCormick Place East, building the museum on a portion of the site that includes Arie Crown Theater and replacing the lost convention space by building a $500 million McCormick Place expansion over Martin Luther King Drive.

Any deal would have to be approved by the GA and the governor.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 10:36 am

Comments

If this project is never pulled off, we’ll have proof that Rahm is all but finished as politically functioning entity. Strong mayors get these deals done when they really want to, and Rahm seems to really want this.

Comment by Phil R. Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 10:47 am
Thirty years from now a Lucas Museum will likely seem very quaint and I suspect irrelevant if it is built. Cinema will evolve in ways we simply can’t begin to speculate on at this point, but there would very likely be little in a Lucas Museum that would attract crowds thirty years from now.

What is really remarkable in all of this is the amazing ego George Lucas who apparently believes his star wars films will retain importance for many years to come. One of the most important pioneers of science fiction film was the Expressionist Fritz Lang. His 1927 film Metropolis was the most expensive film ever released up to that point. Set in the year 2026, it included elements such as an autonomous robot, a mad scientist, a dystopian society, and elaborate futuristic sets. How many young people today even care about Fritz Lang? This entire project is insane.

Comment by Rod Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 11:08 am
This is not a “Star Wars” museum. The museum is dedicated to the narrative arts.Initially it will have a lot of materials from his building but with time it will evolve as all museums do. The collection of the Art Institute in its early years was very weak. The Museum of Contemporary Art didn’t have a collection when it opened. The Lucas museum is a great gift to the City that has fantastic potential.

Comment by Chicago Guy Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 11:42 am
I meant to say “a lot of materials from his personal collection”

Comment by Chicago Guy Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 11:43 am
The city should tell Lucas to go build his Monument to himself in his own backyard and leave us alone. We can use the money on education, infrastructure & improving the quality of life in Chicago. We should not be wasting money on the ego of the Rahms big money Buddies.

Comment by Chungas revenge Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 12:07 pm
I think it is amazing that the city has enough money to demolish a perfectly good building and rebuild it at another location.

Comment by NoGifts Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 12:10 pm
An interesting parallel to Lucas’ ego-driven museum proposal, would be the recent demise of Star Trek: The Experience” in Las Vegas. It opened at one of the big hotels on The Strip to big crowds and good reviews. Riding on the success of the Star Trek TV show and all of its subsequent TV spin-offs and movies, it remained quite popular and was updated with a new “Borg” feature. Despite all that, attendance eventually tailed off and the facility closed. Attempts to relocate it to another part of town fizzled, props a sets were sold off, and it was gone for good. Two generations of fans lost interest in Star Trek and sealed its doom.

Comment by Gantt Chart Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 12:28 pm
Responding to Chicago Guy: Narrative art is art that tells a story in theory, either as a moment in an ongoing story or as a sequence of events unfolding over time. To build a museum around this theme is intellectually absurd, the Lucas collection that is to be housed in this museum includes traditional paintings by Edgar Degas, Winslow Homer and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as a broad range of illustration, children’s art, comic art and photography from many periods and cultures that is simply declared defacto to now be “narrative art.”

It also includes a vast array of star wars stuff to be included in what Lucas calls the Art of Cinema section of the museum, see http://lucasmuseum.org/about/the-collection . In the Cinema section there will be a subsection called “Spaceship and Vehicle Design,” filled with star wars stuff.

Degas is for example normally is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, and the Art Institute has a collection of his works. Why doesn’t Lucas donate his traditional art to the Art Institute? Why does he have to create a museum in his own honor? Are we here in Chicago that desperate to find hooks to pull in tourists that we have to do this when our city is falling apart with debt and teenagers are being murdered every night, really has the Mayor has lost all contact with reality?

Comment by Rod Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 12:54 pm
The latest Shifflet study shows that Chicago tourism had a record year in 2015, with both leisure and business visitors enjoying healthy bumps.

I’m really non-plussed by the Lucas Museum concept. I don’t think it rates a lakefront site.

The people of San Francisco certainly didn’t think it rated prime real estate at The Presidio. That’s why he’s here in the first place.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160426/NEWS09/160429880/another-year-another-chicago-tourism-record

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 2:06 pm
Build this museum along the lake we will, a good idea it is.

Comment by Yoda Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:14 pm
Haven’t seen any attendance projections for the Lucas project.

Hard to believe we have a building design but no one can say how many people will be in it.

We do know that they will provide 350 annual jobs.

For comparison, the Art Institute employs over 3,000.

The EMP Museum in Seattle, eerily similar to Lucas’ proposal, has just over 200 employees, about 600,000 visitors per year.

Shedd aquarium has 670 employees and about
2 million visitors.

Comment by Juvenal Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 3:44 pm
You mean “arts” “museum.”

Comment by Cheryl44 Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 5:44 pm
Rahm’s been told this is not a lakefront showplace. It would be in California if it were. I would not demo a a building to do it regardless of the terms.

Rahm needs a something else to do before he leaves.

Comment by cannon649 Tuesday, May 3, 16 @ 8:21 pm