Construction crews work on Thursday, July 6, 2023, at the site of a residential development in partnership with Warren County Public Schools of 20 acres for the new elementary school to replace Warren Elementary in time for the 2025-26 school year and a single-family residential development of 469 housing units on 83 acres off Brookwood Drive near the Warren County Public Schools Transportation Department headquarters. (Grace Ramey/grace.ramey@bgdailynews.com)

It worked with Cumberland Trace Elementary School, so real estate developer Mark Williams is trying another residential development in partnership with Warren County Public Schools.

Dirt is moving on the 20 acres earmarked for a new elementary school to replace Warren Elementary in time for the 2025-26 school year, and Williams on Thursday revealed details about his plans for a single-family residential development on the other 83 acres he controls off Brookwood Drive.

Williams’ plan for the property he had rezoned last year from agriculture to planned unit development calls for building 469 housing units on the property that is near the Warren County Public Schools Transportation Department headquarters and not far from the intersection of Interstate 165 and Morgantown Road.

That rezoning drew some resistance from residents along and near Brookwood Drive last year, but Williams agreed in his application to widen Brookwood Drive from Morgantown Road to the development’s entrance to a width of 21 feet.

Similar to Williams’ 256-acre project that included the new Cumberland Trace Elementary along with more than 400 housing units, this new development is expected to help meet a growing Warren County’s need for housing and classrooms.

“We’re counting on Bowling Green’s continued growth,” Williams said Thursday. “Every business in town is hiring. They’re going to have to bring people in from out of town to fill those jobs, and those people will need a place to live.”

Warren County added 20,762 residents from 2010 to 2020 and is among Kentucky’s fastest-growing counties. With that trend expected to continue as a result of the Envision AESC electric-vehicle battery plant and other employers coming to the area, Williams is looking to build houses those new workers can afford.

His new Brookwood development will have single-family homes, including some “twinhomes” of at least 1,100 square feet.

“This will give people a chance to buy an entry-level home,” Williams said. “Typically, they will cost around $200,000.”

The Brookwood project is the latest of several housing developments that Williams is involved with through his M.A. Williams Properties company.

In addition to the property along Cumberland Trace Road, Williams is developing apartment communities along Russellville Road and Porter Pike.

The recurring theme in all those developments is growth, which is also driving the county school system’s need for new buildings.

Chris McIntyre, WCPS chief financial officer, said building the new Warren Elementary on Brookwood Drive will alleviate crowding at the aging school on Loop Drive and also give the school system more capacity to serve a growing preschool population.

“This (Brookwood Drive school) will replace Warren Elementary and allow us to convert it into a preschool center,” McIntyre said.

WCPS has more than 900 preschoolers now, and McIntyre said having a preschool center that serves most of those students will open up room in some elementary schools.

The new Warren Elementary will have a footprint similar to that of the new 94,000-square-foot Rich Pond Elementary, McIntyre said, and will have a capacity of approximately 850 students.

Scheduled to open in the fall of 2025, the new Warren Elementary will cost about $36 million and will draw students from the school’s existing boundaries but could also draw from some other nearby schools, depending on need.

The new Warren Elementary is one of a number of WCPS building projects underway.

McIntyre said renovations at Greenwood High School, now more than 30 years old, are “in full swing.”

Included in the upgrades to Greenwood are artificial turf fields for football, soccer and baseball along with changes to how traffic is routed behind the school.

A second phase of the Greenwood renovation will include changes to the interior, including a new library media center.