We've heard the jokes about Ohio the polluted and the brown fields that abound in Northeastern Ohio. What we haven't heard enough of is stories like that of the planned Lakeview Bluffs project currently under development by Hemisphere Development LLC.

The project is reshaping over 1,000 acres of former industrial land, the former Diamond Shamrock Painesville Works once used for production of chemicals used in glass making as well as a landfill and settling pond. The cornerstone for the development will be a sports-oriented resort built by IMG of Cleveland along the lines of their IMG Institute in Florida. Plans include extensive sports training facilities, spa, resort hotel, a culinary institute, corporate meeting facility, art institute, and other high-end amenities.

Not all has gone smoothly at the site, 28 miles east of Cleveland, however. The settling pond area was found to be not stable enough to support buildings. However, in cooperation with OSU's Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, a solution has been found; vineyards.

It turns out that the soil, chalky by nature and contaminated with the right sort of byproducts of the manufacturing process, is excellent for the growing of grapes. The site is in the middle of Ohio's wine belt, where locals are already concerned that much of the best vineyard property is being bought for housing developments.

OSU has run four years of tests growing various grapes in this soil and found the product is free of any contamination. Last fall the first wines were produced from this brown field vineyard, a Reisling and Cabernet Franc.

If all goes as expected, within a few years the Lakeview Bluffs vineyard could cover more than 100 acres of former industrial wasteland, producing from it some top-notch Ohio wine; truly making treasure from trash.