But in a statement, Lucas seemed cool to the idea of looking for an alternative Presidio location. And the San Francisco Chronicle's Phil Matier and Andy Ross reported Monday that a Lucas spokesman seemed taken aback by the Presidio Trust's decision and offer to look for another site:

“This is something that caught us completely by surprise,” David Perry, spokesman for Lucas, said of the latest offer for another site, at an undisclosed location closer to the Main Post.

“For four years, we have been told that the only site available for development is the Sports Basement site — and we have worked and reworked our plan to make it work,” Perry said. “Now, literally in the past few hours, we hear there is an alternative site.

“We are intrigued,” Perry said, but “a lot of other people have asked us to dance, and we will start calling them back.”

Perry apparently was referring, in particular, to an offer to Lucas to build his museum in Chicago, where the director’s new wife lives.

Perry ruled out one site that others have suggested, at the Palace of Fine Arts, saying the Lucas team had examined the property and concluded it wouldn’t work.

The Presidio development marks the second major reversal for Lucas in his attempts to get ambitious, signature projects built in the Bay Area. In April 2012, he withdrew a proposal for a major new movie production complex on his Grady Ranch property in Marin County's Lucas Valley. That decision came after protracted battles with neighbors who sought to block the project. Lucas said he would try to develop the site for low-income and affordable housing instead, but so far he has not found a developer to partner with on the project.

Lucas Cultural Arts MuseumLucas Cultural Arts Museum

Presidio Trust Rejects Lucas Proposal for Cultural Museum