Cinespace Chicago Film Studios

Since Ryerson Steel shut down this 52-acre facility, the 1.45-million-square-feet of buildings left behind have been repurposed into film and television production studios. The Cinespace campus is tucked away in a corner of North Lawndale that is also home to Lagunitas Brewing Company. It is slowly being converted into a backlot with outdoor filming spaces to rival Hollywood. The cavernous buildings are carved up into soundproof stages of various sizes. The stages have been rented for a variety of projects including television shows "Empire" and "Chicago Fire," as well as films in theTransformersandDivergentseries.