After an Odyssean search for a permanent home that spans almost two decades, three cities and over $1 billion in costs, Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has finally found its nest in Los Angeles.
The 300,000-square-foot building, designed by architect Ma Yansong and engineering firm Stantec Inc., resembles a sleek, futuristic spaceship that gently landed on the green lawns of South L.A.’s storied Exposition Park. Founded by wife-and-husband duo Mellody Hobson and George Lucas, the museum officially opened its doors to the public Sept. 22, joining a slew of expanding museums across public and private sectors. That includes The Broad, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the California Science Museum.
“This narrative art is important because it depicts the myths that anchor us, the stories that we believe in,” Hobson said during a Sept. 2 press conference at the museum. “When I’m asked, I tell people the Lucas Museum is a museum by the people for the people. When George is asked, he tells people the Lucas Museum is dedicated to the people’s art.”
The couple will lead as co-chairs of the board, while Hobson shares chief executive duties with Tracey Bates, who has advised the couple on the museum since 2020. The Business Journal sat down with Bates to discuss business strategies, local impacts, and her hopes and aspirations for the newest major player in L.A.’s thriving experience economy.
Lucas Museum finally opened in L.A. after two decades of search in different cities, including Chicago and San Francisco. Why choose L.A. as the final destination?
I’ve been on the journey for six and a half years. It’s always been L.A. to me. What’s great is it’s always felt like it should always have been here because L.A. really is the home of storytelling and creatives. One of the world’s most popular forms of narrative art is cinema – to me, it is Hollywood. It is the city that storytelling in such a global form is lived in, and we have a city full of storytellers and creatives. It’s the perfect home. It’s the perfect blend of why we’re doing this to try and create a future of storytellers.
As a city known for its entertainment industry, L.A. has its own treasure trove of “narrative arts.” How do you plan to weave the museum into L.A.’s cultural fabric in terms of programming and upcoming projects?
We’ll be really excited to announce our programming for 2027 towards the end of the year. But as you say, we have such an amazing playground to play in here in Los Angeles. This has always been a plan to be an accessible museum for the people’s art, and Los Angeles has such a passion for art. We’re really in this cultural resurgence right now with the Geffen Galleries, etc. We want to become a part of the cultural focus here.
Comics and illustration are a huge part of the creative force of L.A. The comic world here in L.A. is significant, and that’s such a big part of our collection and our mission. You have incredible illustrators here that work on sets all day. There are so many people that we should be speaking to that our programming is going to be able to speak and use the people of L.A. so much, and that’s going to be a really strong part of our mission. We are telling the stories of creatives, and there’s so many here in L.A. to choose from, so we’ll be able to make that happen.
You mentioned creating a future of storytellers. Is education part of your mission as well?
Yes, absolutely. We have an entire education wing of our building – it’s definitely a big focus. George and the team are really focused right now behind the scenes on the final pieces of bringing that educational program together. We’ll soon be looking for our leadership for the education program, and we’ll be announcing that in early 2027. We are very, very excited that we already have the basis of where that will live. George wants this to be college-age, young adults learning lots to do with storytelling, mythology and anthropology.
You have a large manga and comic book exhibit, featuring pieces from around the world. Will there be collaborations with other international museums?
Manga is something the team is acquiring, weekly at the moment. Ryan, our senior curator, is working really, really hard with teams over in Asia to build on that collection, so Manga will become a key focus for us over the coming years. (Collaborations between museums are) what we’re out there doing at the moment behind the scenes. And once we’re open, the curatorial team will be able to spend more time doing that … we are really excited to partner with global organizations for programming, exhibition and acquisitions over the coming years.
What would be your business strategy and model for Lucas Museum to achieve a sure financial footing as the newest player in the cultural scene?
The ambition for the museum is always to be self-sustaining. We want this museum to live on far beyond any of us. We want it to be here for 100 years-plus, so it has to be self-sustaining … I’ve been working with George and Mellody for six and a half years on making the museum self-sustaining.
How does our programming link back to people wanting to become part of our community? Ultimately that means buying tickets, memberships, using our spaces. We want them to use our free spaces as well, like our gardens and library, because we really truly want to create a community here in the museum. Revenue, our dining areas, these are all incredible revenue streams for us. We’ve seen exceptional interest before we’ve even opened the doors, so we’re excited about reaching our goals.
But ultimately, in any museum and any business, those moments of visitor revenue have to become a key focus. As long as we are creating an exciting institution to be a part of, then our revenue can become our key driver for self-sustainability.
Museums are experiencing a boom in L.A. across public and private sectors. The Broad has slated a major expansion in 2028 and LACMA just opened its new David Geffen Galleries in May. What, from your perspective, are the current unmissable opportunities in the museum business, and how would Lucas Museum take advantage of the thriving experience economy?
I think the fact that L.A. is having this real cultural moment is really exciting. We have an opportunity to speak to the other organizations with (the 2028 L.A. Olympics) coming into town. That feels far away, but it’s really not … there’s a really good opportunity to work together as a city. Michael Govan, who heads the incredible LACMA, is on our board. There’s ample opportunity. We’re here in Exposition Park and talk to our park partners like the Natural History Museum, California Science Center every week.
There’s a real excitement about these organizations coming together to create an exciting cultural moment in L.A., but just for ourselves, we want to use the energy that’s in L.A. at the minute. We’re going to have Friday and Saturday late night (programs) ongoing. As I said, we will announce our programming at the end of the year for 2027 onwards, and we’ve got an incredible plethora of space to play in. We have our park and gardens. We have an amphitheater in the parks and gardens. We have our event space, and we have an incredible two theaters. We have a lot of opportunities to run off the energy of the city and create something exciting.
From the real estate standpoint, how do you hope the Lucas Museum would influence the neighborhood and the City of L.A., by extension?
Our only aim of what we bring to the neighborhood is to help the neighborhood. This neighborhood has watched us grow for eight years. One of the first things we committed to doing was, even at the moment of construction with the spade in the ground, we wanted to make sure that the team that built the museum was from South L.A. Over 60% of our build force was from the neighborhood. We’re really proud of that. They get to walk past something they’ve built for future generations every day. We have our LM37 pass, so everyone in our ZIP code has free access to the museum, ongoing forever as long as they live here. And we’re very proud of those things. And really, in terms of adding to the real estate market, the only thing we want to do is make sure that we’re good neighbors here in Exposition Park, and we’ve built such a lot of green space. We’ve built the parks and gardens, and we hope people get to use that as part of their daily lives.
You can use the research library. Sketch in the parks. You can bring your picnic to the park. We’re really not wanting to tell anyone how to use the space. We just hope it becomes part of people’s routine in the neighborhood.
What about from a business standpoint?
We’re very proud to be here in Exposition Park. We have incredible park partners, other cultural organizations, and we hope that if there’s some people who come to Exposition Park who’ve never been, they might be on the west side of L.A. and actually never driven over here. That if our museum makes people come to Exposition Park and then realize there’s a lot more here and stay, then that’s great for everyone.
What about your own experience leading the museum? How do you feel?
It’s a very exciting and emotional moment. We’ve had incredibly emotional moments over the past two weeks. We’ve invited our local community to have a preview. We’ve had the construction team that built it come in and have a preview, and watching those people show their families what they built individually has been very, very special.
We’ve had tons of emotional moments, but I think on Tuesday Sept. 22, seeing the excitement of the very first members of the general public through the door, we’re just going to feel emotional, but extremely proud that we are part of such an incredible vision from our founders George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, and that we’ve been able to execute on such an extraordinary vision of architecture … that’s going to be very, very special. And for me, I’m just excited for the next chapter. It’s about building an institution now. We’re doing that behind the scenes, but we’ll be able to put that onto the world stage soon. I’m excited.
In five to 10 years, what do you envision Lucas Museum to be for everyday Angelenos? What are your hopes and aspirations?
I would really want the museum to just become an accessible part of people’s lives. This is a 300,000 square-feet campus. There’s so much to see and do. You can just sit in the park for the day. You can watch the daily programming in the film theaters. You can use our restaurant and just sit on the terrace, the roof terrace, and enjoy some nice food and look over at the incredible views of Los Angeles. You can come and experience the art. We’ll have our programming announced, and starting in 2027, we’ll have our education program towards the end of that year. There’s so much that we’ll be building upon that we just want it to become a place that Angelenos feel that Lucas Museum has added to their lives, and that’s really all we want.
Of course. And Star Wars has been such an integral part of a lot of people’s lives here as well.
I know, truly. George has created a world. That’s what Star Wars is. He is the reason I believe it’s so everlasting. He has truly created a world. It was a world that was an incredible story – he’s such a gifted storyteller. So if this museum can create one new storyteller that hits something at that cultural level, then we’ll have done something correct.
