Bay Area, prepare to shed tears. Hometown kid and Star Wars director George Lucas has decided to build his $1 billion Museum in Chicago rather than San Francisco, members of the Lucas camp have confirmed to Mashable.

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was to announce the news with a "glorious rollout" on Thursday, our source said — but Emmanuel just got scooped by columnist Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Lucas has been angling to build the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, or LCAM, ever since he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in October 2012 for $4.05 billion. The museum will house Lucas's extensive artwork collection, costumes from the Star Wars movies, and interactive exhibits on digital art and storytelling. [UPDATE: Lucas announced the museum's new name Tuesday: the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.]

“Choosing Chicago is the right decision for the museum, but a difficult decision for me personally because of my strong personal and professional roots in San Francisco,” Lucas said. “I thank all Californians who reached out to me in support of the museum.”

His hope was to build it in a prime spot in the Presidio, San Francisco's national park — but despite backing from San Francisco politicians and tech luminaries, that plan was held back for a year and ultimately scuppered by the Presidio Trust.

The Presidio Trust immediately offered Lucas a second, smaller site — a snub that was said to infuriate Lucas. Meanwhile, Chicago's mayor — a friend of Lucas and his Chicago-based wife, Mellody Hobson — offered the retired director a prime 17-acre plot of land next to other world-class museums on Chicago's lakefront.

Belatedly, San Francisco mayor Ed Lee offered Lucas another bayfront space, on a pier right by the Bay Bridge. Even more belatedly, Los Angeles tried to tempt Lucas to a space in the city of angels — but given that Lucas has a longtime loathing of Hollywood, and last left Los Angeles in 1968, that bid was always unlikely.

Lucas already lives in Chicago part-time with Hobson, and the space Emanuel is offering is large enough to contain his entire collection without having to keep some of it at Skywalker Ranch. The museum is set to open in Chicago in 2018.