Part of Toronto will look a lot more like New York, Chicago and London, according to plans to create residences around the city’s waterfront film studio district.

That’s because Pinewood Toronto Studios, the largest movie complex in the city, wants to build homes that mimic the streetscapes of iconic North American neighbourhoods, the Star has learned.

That could include locations such as Soho in New York, Chicago’s Loop area, and Charing Cross in London.

“The internal streets between these buildings are designed to be used as shooting streets that could represent different cities,” says a master plan report prepared for Pinewood Studios and obtained by the Star.

The master plan is the long-awaited blueprint for how developers of the area – including the city of Toronto, which owns about 20 per cent of the site – envision the neighbourhood when it is fully built.

“One of the challenges for film crews in a congested city like Toronto is doing location shooting, where it’s difficult to impose yourself on neighbourhoods,” Edith Myers, the president of Pinewood Studios Toronto, said in an interview.

“These will be real residences, right by the studios that will be used for shooting.”

Building a living studio is just one of the ideas of the ambitious plan, developed with HOK Planning Group, which envisions a mixed-use neighborhood with retail stores, a hotel, condominiums and office space co-existing with eight sound stages.

The 13.5-hectare land parcel is bounded by the Don Roadway, Commissioners St., Bouchette St. and the existing shipping channel.

“Right now you can plunk soundstages in the middle of nowhere and build a studio. But to make this really work you have to have a sense of place – a true community,” said Alfredo Romano of Castlepoint Realty Partners, one of the owners.

The studio already has soundstages and offices totalling 250,000 square feet, but developers want to go much bigger, and have plans to put 2.5 million square feet on the site.

This includes:

• Condominiums that will include four towers and two mid-rise buildings overlooking the shipping channel with an unobstructed view of the water.

(Developers have not set prices, but expect that condominiums will sell for under $500 a square foot. The development will have room for at least 1,000 condos.)

• A 180-room hotel and public plaza planned for the corner of Commissioners St. and Don Roadway to create a gateway to the studio. Visiting stars could move back and forth to the studios much more quickly in a secure environment.

• Retail stores will be in the same area as the hotel, including cafes and restaurants leading to the waterfront promenade.

“This is ultimately intended to be a go-ahead plan, it’s not a dream plan,” said Derek Ballantyne, the chief operating officer of Build Toronto, one of the city-owned developers. “We feel it has a lot of merit.”

Pinewood Studios was originally known as FilmPort before it was purchased last year by Toronto Waterfront Studios Development Inc., a group of investors that included Castlepoint, Conweb Corp., ROI Capital, and BUILD Toronto, which is owned by the city.

Castlepoint is also involved in a purchase of the 5.54-hectare Home Depot site that was first reported in the Star last week.

Ballantyne said the master plan was drawn to conform to planning requirements for the development of the port lands which is to reconnect the area to the rest of the city.

Some parts of the master plan will require rezoning, but developers say they can start the project relatively quickly.

Romano says he would like to see a 60,000-80,000 square foot office building built first to house businesses that supply the film industry. Retail and condos would likely follow.

The shooting street concept is not new. Pinewood Studios in the U.K. has grand plans to create an entire mini-city of shooting streets on a 105-acre site near the M25 highway. But it has run into opposition from residents who don’t want development near their village.

Myers said she does not expect the same kind of problems here.

“We conform to the city’s waterfront vision and this will definitely add a sense of vibrancy to the area,” said Myers.

Residents of the new film district won’t be able to complain either. They will know up-front they will be living in a community that is to be used as a set. The streets are private and can be closed at any time for shooting.

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“They will have to sign convenants, so that even if they sell their home the new owners will be subject to the same requirements. It won’t be for everyone,” said Myers.

“But when there is no shooting going on, it will be fun to walk around Chicago one day, and New York the next.”

During shooting the buildings will have access from surrounding public streets so residents will be able to access their units, while looking out their windows on the activity outside.

Toronto has played a variety of roles, from New York, to Boston to London. Most recently in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, it played itself in a rare role. But most of the time, the city gets requests for locations that look like other North American cities.

City of Toronto film commissioner Peter Finestone says one request he gets all the time is for a location that resembles New York’s Central Park.

“You wouldn’t believe how many times we get asked for that one,” said Finestone.

The long-neglected waterfront area has now appeared to reach a critical mass of development with the unveiling of the master plan and the recent development proposals.

“I think we are definitely getting to a point where you start to see things happening,” said Ballantyne.

This year Corus Entertainment opened a new headquarters with 1,100 jobs coming to the waterfront. Work is underway for a new George Brown campus near the water, and Sugar Beach, a tiny strip of beach opened near the Corus building.

In the West Don Lands, work has already started on an athlete’s village for the future Pan Am Games.

Pinewood was among the first to build on the water, however, and developers have bigger plans to involve the community with the district.

The selling feature of the studio is the large 46,000 mega stage which was supposed to attract blockbuster movies. The historic Pinewood UK studio has shot most of the James Bond and Harry Potter franchises.

But a high Canadian dollar has meant Hollywood blockbusters have been scarce. The mega stage has been used for the drama Chloe, starring Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore, and most recently as a stand-in for Maple Leaf Gardens for the CBC’s popular Battle Of The Blades.

Romano’s Castlepoint Realty has been on a roll lately with the purchase of the Home Depot site and the building out of Pinewood Studios. But it did not happen overnight.

The company bought their first piece of land more than 19 years ago.

“It’s been a long and arduous process, but I’ve never felt more confident,” said Romano. We’ve reached the tipping point.”