THE world famous Marine Ices restaurant and ice cream factory could become an entertainment complex boasting three cinema screens, a new restaurant and 19 flats – after the business moved to new premises further up Chalk Farm Road.

The plans for the site, pictured above, which closed as the Marine Ices Italian restaurant in August, are due to be unveiled at an exhibition next week.

The building – created by the Mansi family who owned the firm from 1931 until 2012 – was designed to look like a ship and included portholes as a nod to one of the family who said they wanted to join the Merchant Navy rather than work in the ice cream business.

Now the building will be converted and partly demolished, with the three-screen cinema created in the basement, the ground floor reopened as a restaurant and housing built on the upper floors.

The new owners of Marine Ices, the Myatts ice cream producers based in Bury St Edmunds, have opened an ice cream parlour 300 yards from the original site in Chalk Farm, and say when the new restaurant re-opens, they will serve up ice cream which pays homage to the family's traditional recipes and flavours.

The development is being managed by property firm London and Regional Properties. Director Geoff Springer said: “Camden Town’s cultural offer will be significantly increased with a new three-screen art-house cinema, including a restaurant, opposite the Roundhouse venue.  The development will also provide 19 new homes, including an offer of affordable housing.

“With Marine Ices moving back in to Camden, just down the road, this is a real opportunity to continue the site’s long history with Marine Ices by making their ice cream available in the new cinema and restaurant.”

Camden Town, which already has an Odeon cinema, is due to have a new art house cinema built on the Hawley Wharf markets development – just 400 yards from Marine Ices. And as the New Journal revealed earlier this year, another independent cinema, Shortwave, plan to open a single screen on the site of the former North London Polytechnic on Prince of Wales Road, less than half a mile from Chalk Farm.