Filmmaker George Lucas and wife donate $25M to Chicago school

CHICAGO (AP) — Filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, are donating $25 million to a prestigious private school on Chicago's South Side.

The University of Chicago says today the grant from The George Lucas Family Foundation will pay for a new arts hall at the university's Laboratory Schools.

The 86,000-square-foot building will open in 2015 and will be named after Gordon Parks, a black photographer, musician and social-justice advocate who died in 2006.

Hobson is president of the Chicago-based Ariel Investments. She married the Star Wars filmmaker in 2013.

Lucas says in a statement that art can "transform lives and communities" and says he hopes Parks' legacy will inspire future generations.

The Hyde Park school has about 1,800 students in nursery school through 12th grade.