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Originally Posted by denizen467
^ Amen. He can be a master of plot twists - "Luke, I am your father" (or however the line goes).
After all, he was denied his desired site. Who says he will be thrilled about this substitute. And guess what - I don't see what is so impressive about this new waterfront site, compared to Chicago's waterfront site. The Golden Gate is fantastic but many other parts of the SF bay are not as remarkable.
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I rented bikes from a small bike shop a block from that site and it's not a bad area, although it feels a bit removed from most of the city, and it still feels pretty industrialish to me despite the fact that there is a fair amount of residential there these days. I would say that Chicago's site is equally removed (maybe even somewhat more removed) from the city, but it better meets Lucas' desire to be near "nature" in that it will have an eastward view of sailboats and Northerly Island and the proposed pedestrian connection to Northerly Island will be not far from it. I don't think the Chicago site is as compelling as the site in SF Lucas wanted, but I think it balances pretty well against the pros and cons of the San Francisco site he's now been offered. Another advantage to the Chicago site is that it would have more room to expand relatively easily, if that's at all a consideration.
I'm actually not a huge fan of the site Chicago offered and initially I thought the alternate San Francisco site was better mainly because it's tied into the street grid. But after thinking about it some more, I think Chicago's chances are still decent given that one of Lucas criteria was being near nature. Just being across the street from a former working pier in the SF Bay isn't really being in nature. Chicago's site isn't as nature-ish as the Presidio site, but it's a lot closer to green parkland than the alternate SF site is. Who knows what he'll do, but I don't think we can count Chicago out just yet.