LA’s Lucas Museum sued by contractor over $30-a-year state land deal

A contractor has claimed George Lucas’ hotly anticipated $1 billion museum used its private status to skirt California’s public works rules while enjoying a sweetheart deal to build on state-owned land for just $30 a year.

Electrical contractor J.E. Snyder Electric filed a $1.9 million lawsuit against the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, alleging it was not paid for work on the sprawling Exposition Park project, according to the LA Times.

At the center of the dispute is the museum’s unusual deal for the publicly owned land beneath it — a 99-year lease that costs just $30 a year.

The contractor claims that arrangement effectively makes the museum a public works project and should have subjected its construction to additional state requirements.

The lawsuit alleges the museum, prime contractor Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Co. and first-tier subcontractor Siemens Industry Inc. “actively promoted, contracted, and labeled the construction as a ‘private, non-profit development’ to bypass the rigorous administrative, registration, and bonding mandates of the California Public Contract Code, Civil Code, and Labor Code.”

The museum, co-founded and privately financed by the “Star Wars” legend and his wife Mellody Hobson, has vehemently rejected the allegation that the project should be considered public work.

“The Lucas Museum is one of the largest private cultural gifts in American history: more than $1 billion, every penny of it private. No public funds. No public financing. No public debt,” museum attorney Orin Snyder told The Times.

“The claim that this is a ‘public work’ is a fiction, manufactured for leverage in a routine payment dispute by a subcontractor who has no direct contract with the Museum.”

The museum argues the rent is only one part of a broader agreement that benefits the state and the public.

It paid the state $490,000 annually while some surface parking was unavailable during construction and $2.1 million a year when it was completely unavailable, per The Times.

The museum also provided more than 1,375 new parking spaces, upgraded an adjacent soccer field and renovated facilities at nearby Jesse Brewer Park.

Its campus will also include 11 acres of privately maintained public park space.

But J.E. Snyder Electric argues the bargain-basement lease changes the project’s legal character.

“We contend this rent concession makes the project a public works,” attorney Christopher Hook told the outlet. “Ultimately this will be a question of law for the Court to decide.”

The contractor also alleges the museum failed to obtain a payment bond required for California public works projects, which can protect contractors seeking unpaid money, and was never registered as a public works project with the state Department of Industrial Relations.

J.E. Snyder Electric co-founder John Snyder said the payment dispute has forced the company to take on debt.

“We’ve taken out loans to pay interest to finance our debt because we’re not being compensated from them,” he told the paper.

The lawsuit is one of four recently brought by contractors alleging they are owed money by the museum, Hathaway Dinwiddie or Siemens.

Hathaway Dinwiddie has separately sued the Lucas Museum for alleged breach of contract involving more than $35,000, while three other contractor lawsuits are seeking between $272,000 and $439,000.

The legal fight comes as the long-delayed museum prepares to open Sept. 22 in Exposition Park, eight years after construction broke ground.

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