Mayor: George Lucas museum coming to Chicago

After months of speculation and debate,  George Lucas’s coveted museum is officially coming to Chicago.

In 2018, on what’s now a parking lot, the doors will open to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

The museum will be home to some of the filmmaker’s collection of Norman Rockwell paintings, the trappings of his epic movie franchise Star Wars and samples of the special effects George Lucas invented at Industrial Light and Magic.

It will all be nestled along the Lake Michigan on prime real estate just south of Soldier Field. It will be neighbors with the Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium and the Field Museum.

The cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco were also in the running.

In a statement, Lucas said, “Choosing Chicago is the right decision for the museum, but a difficult decision for me personally because of my strong personal and professional roots in the Bay Area.”

But Lucas now has strong ties to Chicago. He’s married to a Chicagoan; Ariel Capital president Mellody Hobson.

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel made a statement to the media Tuesday afternoon saying the museum will give the city “One of the most tremendous, vibrant, and green museum campuses of any American city.”