Kitchener has slashed the asking price on the site of the former Electrohome plant, signalling to prospective buyers that the city is open to innovative redevelopment ideas.

The city will make a second bid in January to sell the contaminated Electrohome site.

The building at 152 Shanley St. sits in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, but it has been vacant for decades. A notorious eyesore, the 1887 building is in poor shape and contaminated. For the last several years, its owner, a numbered company, has not paid property taxes or even carried out basic snow clearing and grass cutting.

The city tried to force a tax sale of the building last year but received only a single bid of $200,000 — well short of the minimum bid of $1.1 million, the asking price.

So the city is trying again, this time slashing the price tag by 60 per cent to about $450,000 and signalling to prospective buyers that Kitchener is open to innovative redevelopment ideas.

The city held a brainstorming session with the neighbourhood in April in an attempt to find some agreement on what area residents would be willing to see on the site. They generally supported the idea of a new residential building of no more than six storeys, and council approved that vision at a meeting this week.

Several residents have expressed concern that the concept would lead to a building that is too tall and massive for the neighbourhood.

While the proposed concept is much more intense than what’s now in the area, “it’s something that makes it attractive enough to a developer to clean up the contamination that has been a blight on our community for so long,” Sarah Marsh, the councillor who represents the area, said when the issue was discussed at committee.

Coun. Bil Ioannidis sounded a note of caution. “Anyone who does take on this property, there will be some significant risk to that individual.”