GRANBY, Mo. — Starting your own business can be an expensive proposition. So an area community is making that process as simple and inexpensive as possible. It’s a lot easier to start a new business when you don’t have to worry about start-up costs. That’s the thought behind a business incubator that’s in the process of going up on Main Street in Granby — just across from City Hall.

“We’re taking these shipping containers and painting, we’re going to paint them and insulate them and put in electric and water and sewer everything and especially the whole town has fiber optics to each house and we’ll be putting in fiber optics in those as well,” said Barry Flint, Treasurer, G.E.P.D.

These are renderings of what the facility will eventually look like.

To help get things off the ground, the city has kicked in $40,000 of federal funding.

Two of the 7 shipping containers that will make up the initial phase of the project are already on site. The others will be purchased as more money becomes available. The nonprofit, Granby Economic Property Development Corporation or G.E.P.D. Is behind the project.

“And we can rent those out to people who have a small business idea, but they don’t have a lot of money to spend, so we can rent them one of these places, they’ll be six actual business spots,” Flint added.

The facility is going in on the property that used to house the Lux Theater before that building came down. The next phase is to renovate the old hardware store building so business owners can transition into a more traditional business setting there. Money to fund the project will also come from proceeds of all of the items sold at a downtown thrift store.