KITCHENER — A television crew is taking over a portion of Carl Zehr Square in downtown Kitchener this week, to the delight of city officials.

Up to 100 production staff will be working on location outside City Hall, filming a new NBC Universal miniseries called "Heroes Reborn."

The show, which premièred last month, is a 13-episode spinoff from the critically acclaimed series "Heroes," which ran from 2006 to 2010. It's set in Odessa, Texas, a year after that city was destroyed by a terrorist attack.

Members of the TV crew arrived Sunday, and will be here until this coming Sunday, though filming is only expected to occur from Thursday to Saturday, said Victoria Raab, Kitchener's director of communications. The cameras could be rolling any time from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on those days.

Workers are in the process of erecting plywood sets on the square's outdoor stage to create the illusion of a postapocalyptic world. The week of filming will cause some minor disruptions downtown: production vehicles will occupy all street-level parking next to City Hall this week, but the public can still park in the underground garage. College Street will occasionally be restricted to a single lane.

Kitchener is eager to build a reputation as a city that's welcoming to the film industry, Raab said.

"Municipalities that do it well, putting a focused effort on building a reputation as a film-friendly city, find it's worth it," she said. "It brings creative people into the city and starts to develop a reputation as an interesting place to be, where interesting things are happening."

Film and television shoots can also bring in a good economic return, said Trevor McWilliams of Cambridge's economic development department. "They pay cold, hard cash," he said. That includes fees to the Business Improvement Association, rentals to any businesses they shoot in, fees to rent parking spaces for their vehicles, in addition to the money production members spend in nearby hotels and restaurants.

Canadian television crews can spend as much as $10,000 to $15,000 a day when they come to a community to shoot, according to Rod Regier, who heads Kitchener's economic development office.

Most of that is spent on motels and meals, Regier said, but the hope is to nurture a reputation as an area that encourages film making, and that activity will also boost local talent and productions, he said.

"The successful use of our city as a stage for film helps build our identity, and it can be a foundation that we use to build more of this activity," he said.

Cambridge has successfully nurtured a reputation as a place to shoot television and film, with several recent productions including "Bitten", "Covert Affairs" and a Stephen King miniseries starring James Franco. Since the late 1990s, a parade of stars has worked in Cambridge, including Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Sharon Stone.

Its "Hollywood Cambridge" webpage trumpets the city's three "quaint downtowns," its many heritage buildings and its old stone and iron bridges as ideal for shooting period pieces such as "Murdoch Mysteries."

Older industrial buildings, such as the old American Standard building in Hespeler, are the perfect setting to shoot gritty, urban dramas. The 19th-century secluded elegance of Cruickston Park, on the edge of Galt, has stood in for many a mansion.

This year alone, Cambridge has had 16 television shows or movies shot on location.

"It's great fun, to be absolutely honest with you," said McWilliams, for fans as well as others.

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He recalls one time where shooting had closed a main street in Hespeler, something that usually doesn't thrill either residents or city officials. "Everyone was out, everyone was talking, everyone was excited, the restaurants were all full of people. Everybody was having a good time."

- Reimagining Kitchener's public square