SAN FRANCISCO — The Force wants to move to San Francisco.
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas says he has outgrown bucolic Marin County and wants to build a campus for some of his firms across the bay in the Presidio, the historic Army post-turned-national park.
But the man whose scheduled May release of "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" is creating frenzied expectations among "Star Wars" aficionados, faces both stiff competition from other powerful would-be developers and close scrutiny from environmentalists and community groups.
Previous Roadblocks
In Los Angeles, an entertainment heavyweight like Lucas might be considered a shoo-in over lesser known commercial office builders in a head-on contest for development rights. But this is Northern California, a stubbornly un-star-struck place.
Back in the 1980s, Lucas wanted to build a digital production studio on two ranches he bought next to his Skywalker Ranch in Marin County. Environmentalists and neighbors torpedoed that plan, arguing that it would create too much traffic. After years of negotiations and a promise to dedicate 3,000 acres to open space, Lucas won the right in 1997 to build more offices, but no new studio, on the ranches.
Lucas will keep his Marin ranches as headquarters for his movie company Lucasfilm Ltd. and maintain up to 600 employees there. However, Lucasfilm President Gordon Radley says there is no room in Marin County for a campus that would bring together Lucas' special effects, sound and software subsidiaries now scattered across Marin's San Rafael in leased offices and warehouses.
"We've been looking for some place to get our businesses back in a common campus," said Radley. "It makes good business sense and builds morale."
If he wins the right to lease the Presidio site, about 1,500 Lucas employees would move to one of the hottest pieces of property in California.
Dramatically straddling the San Francisco headlands where the Golden Gate Bridge soars across the water to Marin, the 1,480-acre former fort offers stunning views of the bay, white sand beaches, miles of jogging paths and clusters of historic Mission Revival homes. And it is all just a few minutes' drive from downtown San Francisco.
Congress agreed to make the Presidio a national park in 1994 but with a unique caveat: If the park is not financially self-sustaining by 2013, it will be broken up and sold to the highest bidders. The National Park Service's presence was restricted to controlling Presidio perimeter beaches. President Clinton appointed the Presidio Trust, a board that is to develop the park's leasable space and run its interior.
