By the Bay, a Disney museum

Having been the driving force in planting Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A., Walt Disney’s kin are moving to open a 77,000-square-foot museum and office complex in renovated old military buildings in the Presidio in San Francisco.

A fall 2009 opening is scheduled for the Walt Disney Family Museum, where exhibits will tell the story of Walt Disney and his effect on American childhood, urban planning and the film industry.

Supervising preparations will be Richard Benefield, who was announced Thursday as executive director. Benefield had been deputy director of the Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, Mass., since 2002.

-- Mike Boehm