Los Angeles’ Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, opening to the public Sept. 22, has announced that it’s offering free annual passes as well as an early preview to its closest residential neighbors in South L.A.’s 90037 ZIP code. George Lucas and his partner Mellody Hobson’s long-awaited $1 billion, 300,000-square-foot cultural institution — with its fittingly futuristic building, given that it’s made possible by the Star Wars fortune — will feature more than 1,300 objects on display, as well as 11 acres of landscaped space across its campus.

“We wanted to make sure the neighbors that have been seeing the museum built from the ground up for the past eight years are the first ones inside,” explains the museum’s CEO Tracey Bates of the renewable pass program, which allows holders to reserve a pair of tickets.

According to census data, the 3-square-mile 90037 ZIP code includes more than 17,000 households. A quarter of the predominantly Hispanic and African American population lives below the poverty line. The Lucas Museum resides at the ZIP code’s northern boundary, within Exposition Park, which also features the California Science Center as well as L.A. County’s Natural History Museum.

The renowned landscape designer Mia Lehrer — whose other projects include SoFi Stadium — is behind the Lucas Museum’s grounds, which complement Ma Yansong’s otherworldly architecture. “Our gardens and public spaces are really their backyard now,” Bates notes of the local community. “We want to give them reasons to visit.”

The museum’s collection, which boasts the original Lucasfilm archives retained by Lucas after the company’s 2012 sale to Disney for $4 billion, features a pantheon ranging from Norman Rockwell, Jack Kirby and Robert Crumb to Frida Kahlo and the local star Judith Baca, best known for her monumental mural of local history along the Los Angeles River in the San Fernando Valley.

The Lucas Museum’s arrival follows the high-profile debut in April of LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries. It opens as the city’s La Brea Tar Pits and Museum has closed for renovations.

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