County commissioners heard an update Thursday, Sept. 3, on progress on the new Warren County Master Plan. Though an exact date has not been set, a second “public open house” for the project, including the unveiling of the draft plan, will likely take place in early December.

Stephen Ibendahl, project manager with i5Group, the company developing the master plan for the county, said he hoped to schedule the event, where i5 Group and the county will be “basically kind of rolling out the draft plan,” for late November or early December.

Presiding Commissioner Joe Gildehaus said December would work better, though no date was finalized at the meeting. A first open house for the master plan project was held in March.

Ibendahl said the plan outlines three scenarios: One following current trends of population and job growth, one focused on preservation, and one projecting more rapid suburbanization of the county.

A U.S. Census Bureau population estimate from July 2025 put Warren County’s population at just over 39,000 people. Market analysis of demand following current trends projects population growth “kind of on the higher side” at around 24,000 additional people living in the county by 2050, with an increase of about 11,000 jobs, Ibendahl said.

Ibendahl highlighted the “farmland corridor” located “between Warrenton and Wright City and then kind of along Highway M” as an area likely to see future residential development. Having some idea where future city boundaries will be, and also which areas are likely to remain unincorporated, can be beneficial for decision-making on areas like policing and annexations, he said.

He also presented a scenario of “westward suburbanization” of Warren County that could include not only further expansion of the county’s existing larger cities along Interstate 70, but possibly extensive development in areas such as along Highway A, Highway T, and in the Marthasville area.

“These areas could potentially build out at almost 140-, 150,000, so getting your total county population close to, you know, 200,000,” Ibendahl said.

He also cautioned, however, that if population growth in the county follows the current trends and is closer to 24,000, “but you’re building out for this larger capacity where the demand isn’t quite there yet,” this can lead to inefficiencies and inability to support infrastructure maintenance and services costs with available capital.

“So I think that’s an important question in terms of criteria, you know, what’s more efficient in terms of infrastructure and services costs?” he said, adding that he was not advocating for the county planning for one scenario over another.

Though he did note the Marthasville area as a possible location for significant population growth when presenting the “suburbanization” scenario, before Ibendahl got to that point, Commissioner Gildehaus expressed concern that the plan did not focus enough on southern Warren County. He noted that maps Ibendahl was presenting showed much larger areas of growth along I-70.

“I heard a lot of complaints at the last meeting — which, I agree, our growth is up here, but we don’t talk about Marthasville, the airport, Katy Trail, we don’t even have it highlighted,” Gildehaus said.

“There’s a school district down there, there’s a fire district down there, there’s an ambulance district down there, there’s several schools, there’s several subdivisions, and at the last meeting, we had some of our people down south — they’re not even going to come back if you don’t even talk about it,” he added.

“Marthasville is growing, the school down there is growing, there’s multiple businesses going down there, and that’s just my point. I mean, this is supposed to be the entire county master plan, not just I-70.”