WATERLOO -- William Frost was an electrician at Chamberlain Manufacturing Corp. in the 1970s when the defense contractor employed hundreds of people in Waterloo.

As of late, he and others have been on the outside looking in at their former place of employment -- for a long time.

Chamberlain employed more than 800 people during the height of the Vietnam War and manufactured Patriot missile components during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It closed in 1994.

It's not coming back. The surrounding neighborhood is trying to rebuild. Frost, like several others who live nearby, would like to see something happen to the old east Waterloo plant.

"I think it would enhance the growth of the north side of Waterloo," said Frost, president of the Good Shepherd Neighborhood Association. "As a citizen, I would like to see the north side of Waterloo grow. It would spread out the tax base. The north side of Waterloo is a gateway to the north. By developing the north side of Waterloo, we are actually enhancing the (entire) city of Waterloo. It's high time. They need to spend money on this north side of Waterloo to make it a better place to live and do business."

Frost joined about 25 of his fellow citizens on a snowy night to talk about what to do with the old plant at a public information meeting. Options discussed include total or partial demolition and reuse as park space or for light commercial or manufacturing uses.

The City Council apparently will take up the matter before the end of the year. Council members will be asked to hold a public hearing on the possibility of the city taking title to the property.

If the city does take title to the property, it will have to seek government grants and, potentially, help from the previous manufacturing owner to clean up contamination at the site, Waterloo Community Planning and Development Director Don Temeyer said.

A $350,000 study of the site, funded with a federal "brownfields" grant and conducted by Howard R. Green and Associates, revealed the presence of unacceptable levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical degreasing agent and a carcinogen, on the site and in adjacent test wells off the site.

Temeyer expressed confidence in the city's ability to secure funding to demolish and clean up the site, citing its success in the late 1980s and early '90s in demolishing and reusing portions of the old Rath Packing Co. plant, major portions of which are now used by Crystal Distribution Services for cold storage.

In 1996 Chamberlain, owned by Duchossois Industries of Oak Brook, Ill., was sold to Atlas Warehouse, a company controlled by Ron Vose Sr. and Dick Vose, principals in Vose Industrial Services, parent company of Vose Moving Co. of Waterloo. At the time they planned to use the 500,000-square-foot complex for additional warehousing.

Now, the plant has fallen into disuse, and the Voses have offered to deed the property to the city for cleanup and rehabilitation.

Those present at Tuesday's meeting generally agreed that if the city doesn't take control of the site, it may deteriorate further, as did the former Construction Machinery Corp. site at Vinton and Glenwood streets. That plant, which closed in 1993, became the home of transients and was destroyed in a 1997 arson fire. The federal government is assisting with that site's environmental cleanup.

Frost said the federal government also should participate in cleaning up Chamberlain, since it was doing work for the U.S. Department of Defense.

"I would think they would be responsible," he said.

Contact Pat Kinney at (319) 291-1484 or pat.kinney@wcfcourier.com.