GRANBY, Mo. — A bit of a mess on a main street corner in Granby means promising possibilities for the future of the city.

The non-profit Grow Granby is working with the Department of Natural Resources on a stormwater retention system at the corner of Main and Church Streets. It’s the former site of the Lux Theatre, which eventually became a plating company. When the building fell in 1985, it was determined the plating company had been using chemicals that contaminated the soil and was declared a hazardous waste site.

Grow Granby has big plans for that corner now, and DNR wants four inches of concrete laid over the existing contaminated area to make it safe. But, project officials realized there will now be a storm runoff issue of 130 gallons a minute once that concrete is poured. To ease the issue, Grow Granby has hired a crew to bury five perforated culverts that will hold 10,000 gallons of water for a storm rate of 2-and-a-half inches of rain per hour.

“The contamination was actually over there where the old concrete floor is. But they had encumbered the whole lot. But, by talking to them and explaining where we were going to be doing this, it wasn’t in the contaminated area,” said Barry Flint, Grow Granby Project Manager.

The $25,000 stormwater project is almost done. Once the more than $175,000 project for the entire corner is complete, large shipping containers will be turned into a “strip mall” for seven businesses. The idea is for the space to be an incubator for future businesses to try their ideas out before finding a more permanent space.