George Lucas’ Incredible New Museum Could Have Been in Illinois

With all the talk about the Chicago Bears leaving Soldier Field, and possibly the state, there's a pretty big "what if?" hanging over Illinois this week, as a $1-billion muesum opens in California.

The Museum Chicago Almost Had

The futuristic, 300,000-square-foot George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles welcomed its first public visitors today (Tuesday 9/22), following a star-studded opening weekend.

Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the roughly $1-billion project featured more than 100,000 square feet of space that is dedicated to visual storytelling, including comics, illustration, cinema, murals, and iconic pieces of movie history connected to Lucas' Star Wars series.

Remember When This Was Supposed to Be in Chicago?

For Chicagoans, the opening of the Museum of Narrative Art comes with a sting, as George Lucas originally planned to build the museum along Lake Michigan near Chicago's Museum Campus.

After years of planning, however, the project was abanoned in Chicago in 2016 following legal challenges and delays regarding the proposed lakefront sites. Lucas ultimately decided on a Los Angeles location to be the museum's home.

The area where the proposed museum would've now been built, is still to this day, a parking lot, according to ABC7.

A Giant Chicago What-If

And the timing of the Lucas museum opening makes it especially noticeable.

If the Museum of Narrative Art would've ended up in Chicago, the grand opening would've likely been near the same time Bears fans were filling the city for football.

As an Illinois resident and Bears fan, I can only hope that a decade from now we aren't watching another state celebrate the opening of a major project that should have been build right here in Illinois.