CHICAGO — A Chicago parks advocacy group has launched a legal challenge to block Star Wars' creator George Lucas' plans to use a site along the Lake Michigan shoreline for his proposed museum.
The Friends of the Parks filed its lawsuit against the owner of the land, the Chicago Park District, and the city in the U.S. District for Northern Illinois on Thursday. The complaint seeks to bar the city and district from taking a role in constructing or transferring the property for the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
The land is held solely by the state in trust for the public and the approval of the General Assembly is needed to alter its current use, the complaint says. Even if approved by the state, however, the project would violate lakefront protection rules, it says.
"Under the public trust doctrine recognized in both federal and state courts, such trust property recovered from the waters of Lake Michigan should be set aside and preserved as a natural resource and open space equally available to Illinois citizens," the complaint says.
Allowing the museum to be built on the site "without authority of the General Assembly will diminish or impair the beneficial interest of plaintiffs and other Illinois citizens," the lawsuit argues, charging that the project violates the U.S. constitution's equal protection and due process provisions.
The city has countered that that the lawsuit is without legal merit and the proposed project does not violate any applicable laws and the city intends to ask the court to dismiss the complaint.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has called the project a great boon for the city as it won't be on the fiscal hook to cover any investment costs although he has not ruled out investments in infrastructure at the proposed site, which will be leased for $1 to the museum.
Lucas chose the Chicago site over other cities vying for the $400 million museum. The city's site is now a parking lot that serves the museum campus along the downtown shores of Lake Michigan. The land houses several other museums and Soldier Field.
A city task force report projected the project could generate between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in tax and tourist spending over a 10-year period. Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson, president of the Chicago-based Ariel Investments LLC, live part-time in Chicago.
The museum that would house Lucas' art and film memorabilia, including a scale model of the Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars series, is scheduled to open in 2018.
