The Mexican Museum, a longtime fixture in San Francisco’s Fort Mason, is on its way to settling permanently into a more central and far roomier Yerba Buena arts district home after supporters spent four decades clearing legal hurdles and raising money.

Local officials and Mexican dignitaries marked the nascent construction with a dedication ceremony Tuesday for the museum, which has the largest collection of Latino art in the country. At its new location in Jessie Square, the museum will occupy the first four floors of a 510-foot luxury condo tower and sit next to the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the historic St. Patrick Church.

The development at 706 Mission St., which is being partially built out of the historic brick Aronson Building, is expected to open in 2019.

“We’re establishing now a cultural institution of major proportion that will be for the Mexican community, the Chicano community, the Latin American community as a whole,” Andrew Kluger, the museum’s chairman, told several hundred people who attended the event.

The museum’s supporters and trustees say it has outgrown its Fort Mason location, causing many of its 16,000 or so paintings, sculptures, textiles and other artifacts to be held in storage because there isn’t any space to display them. The new location, with nearly 60,000 square feet, will be about eight times as large.

Against the backdrop of a foggy sky and a construction crane, the dedication ceremony — held as the Republican National Convention in Cleveland entered its second day — was a celebration as well as a political statement against anti-immigrant rhetoric and calls to restrict immigration from Mexico.

“At a time when too many angry and loud voices are talking about building 50-foot-high walls, you are building an edifice to civilization and our common humanity,” said state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

Speakers including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Mexican Foreign Secretary Claudia Ruiz Massieu spoke of the importance of preserving Latino art and artifacts for future generations, and about strengthening the relationship between the United States and its southern neighbor.

City Supervisor David Campos, who represents the traditionally Latino Mission District, said the museum was a reminder that Latinos are an integral part of the city even as rising rents force out families.

“You actually cannot talk about the history of San Francisco without recognizing that we were actually here before many of the people that are now criticizing immigration,” Campos said. “We are not going to be erased from San Francisco’s history and culture.”

Project supporters noted that Tuesday’s festivities came just three weeks after the museum’s founder, Peter Rodriguez, died at age 90. He had hoped to attend the dedication.

Kluger said the museum had to raise $63 million in three years to pay for construction. The building’s developer, Millennium Partners, also had to fight legal challenges from residents of the nearby Four Seasons high-rise condos, who complained of shadows that would be cast by the new tower.

The museum’s designer, Enrique Norten, a Mexico City native, said the space will have a contemporary design and feel.

“Obviously I am Mexican, so I bring with me all sorts of tonalities that will resonate and differentiate this work from other works in the city,” he said. “I’m just hoping that it will really become the home of Mexicans away from home.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov