The saga of San Francisco's Mexican Museum, which has not actually had a museum space to call home for the better part of a decade, continues to be a troubled one.

Last we heard, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco had announced its intention to open its first phase in a new location at 706 Mission Street by early 2025, a city audit in March 2024 suggested that likely wasn't possible, a subsequent Chronicle headline called out "misuse of funds" and said the museum's future was "in doubt," and museum's board fired back that the Chronicle piece was "full of misrepresentations, erroneous assertions, and slanderous accusations targeting the museum’s leadership and management practices."

No retraction was made after the museum threatened legal action against the Chronicle, but the Chronicle piece did note a correction made to "better reflect the language used in the audit."

Originally founded in Mission District in 1975, the Mexican Museum has had its sizeable collection in storage since 2018, when it closed its former location in Fort Mason Center. A new location was built in the first four floors of the Four Seasons Private Residences at 706 Mission, a building that was completed in 2020, via an agreement with the city and its former Redevelopment Agency — now the Office of Community Infrastructure and Investment (OCII). The city controls the space, which it has had a contract to lease to the museum since 2012. The museum, as part of the agreement, was supposed to begin construction on tenant improvements in the space — a project that could cost around $50 million or more — within 24 months of receiving the keys to the space, which reportedly occurred in the summer of 2023.

Since then, as the Chronicle now reports, the museum has said it has pledges totaling $16 million. But last week, the museum missed a June 14 deadline to secure its access to that cash, which puts a $6.6 million grant from the city at risk — though OCII has apparently given the museum a 60-day reprieve.

Construction of its first phase of the buildout is expected to cost around $11 million, and the museum had until June 14 to raise around $4.5 million from private donors to qualify for the release of the city funds.

The city's Real Estate Division has now issued a default notice to the museum, and it now faces a potential lease termination.

The city gave the museum two months to complete its first-phase buildout, which is most certainly not going to happen.

"The city reasonably anticipates that [the museum] will fail to meet this lease obligation, and therefore, the city is giving notice of this anticipatory breach and the opportunity to cure," said Andrico Penick, director of the city’s Real Estate Division, in the notice of default, per the Chronicle.

Board members of the museum have yet to comment on the situation. Former board secretary Xochitl Castañeda, a UC Berkeley professor, confirmed to the Chronicle that she is no longer involved with the organization.

It was Castañeda who issued the scathing press release last March about the Chronicle piece, saying in part, "The Mexican Museum is entitled to cultural parity within the Yerba Buena Gardens, aligning with the standards of other premier City art institutions. The people of San Francisco and the State of California deserve a world class institution that accurately reflects and honors Latino narratives, and the City and County of San Francisco must affirm its commitment to realizing The Mexican Museum’s future home at 706 Mission Street."

As the Chronicle notes, "The Mexican Museum's fundraising may have been hurt by its lack of physical galleries to show off its collection to donors. But, there were signs that it was cash-strapped long before the pandemic."

And former Supervisor Aaron Peskin sounded a note of hopelessness for the museum's future under Mayor Daniel Lurie, telling the Chronicle that former Mayor London Breed was aware of the realities with the Mexican Museum's finances but "didn’t want to upset the apple cart while she was running for reelection.”

"This organization does not have the capacity, it has repeatedly failed to perform and it’s time for the city to move on," Peskin tells the paper.

Photo via the Mexican Museum