Blake Richey and Emily Booth have achieved success with their The Southern apartment community along Nashville Road in southern Warren County. Now they aim to replicate that success with a similar development a little farther north.

Richey and Booth, through their The Southern Retail Partners LLC, won approval Thursday from the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County for a rezoning expected to lead to a 248-unit apartment development on a 12.7-acre tract within sight of the National Corvette Museum.

The property, which borders Corvette Drive and sits behind the McDonald’s and Starbucks restaurants on Hennessy Way, was approved in a 7-0 vote for a rezoning from highway business to multi-family residential and will now go to the Bowling Green City Commission for final approval.

Richey said he picked the acreage because the industrial development in the county’s northern end is creating a need for housing.

“All the economic development going on in the (Kentucky) Transpark I’m very familiar with because I sold some land in the Transpark,” Richey said. “We wanted to find a tract of land where we could do something similar to what we did in the southern end of the county.”

What Richey and Booth did with The Southern was build an upscale apartment community with such amenities as a swimming pool, clubhouse and fitness center.

The apartment complex planned near the Corvette museum will be similar. According to the development plan, it will have those same amenities along with a dog park and possibly a pickleball court.

Richey said the new development will have apartments ranging from one bedroom to three and will include some “carriage” buildings with garages beneath the apartments.

His development plan calls for access to the apartments from Corvette Drive and from a new street being built called Vintage Lane that will connect with Hennessy Way beside Starbucks.

To allay fears about increased traffic on Corvette Drive affecting the museum, Southern Retail Partners attorney Tad Pardue said plans call for funneling most of the traffic through Vintage Lane.

“We wanted another access point for emergency response,” Richey explained.

The planning commission Thursday also approved the application of the Housing Authority of Bowling Green and Live the Dream Development Inc. to close approximately 5,098 square feet of an unnamed right of way along Double Springs Road and approximately 2,459 square feet of an unimproved alley running perpendicular to Double Springs Road.

The closures are needed, said HABG Special Projects Director Katie Miller, in order to build an addition to existing HABG property that will be used as a food bank.