The Middle Urals region is famous for its 300 years of industrial metallurgy history. The world-famous Russian metallurgy plants were built and worked here since 1702. During the XX century some of them were destroyed or replaced, but plants’ buildings still exist. This rich industrial heritage nowadays has become a fundament for a uniqueness of Urals creative industries. Russian government and The Agency for Strategic Initiatives developed a program to renovate such territories. This all-Russian program is for the transformation of the territories of former industrial zones and abandoned buildings. The Middle Urals became a leader of the third stage of the federal project Creative Lab and a pilot region for creative industries. This article is devoted to the analyze of the regional development of creative industries and the usage of former industrial zone and abandoned buildings for it. There are several directions in which the work of the creative sector development is occurred in the Middle Urals: 1) writing the Strategy of the creative industries development; 2) development of a whole network of creative sites in the region on the territories of former plants and industrial facilities; 3) business education for creative entrepreneurs and new university educational standards for creatives industries.