A reader gave us the heads up last week that cranes were delivering modules to the corner of Ridge & Lauriston, for the construction of several new homes. We made our way up there earlier today and found some brand new buildings on this site, where once there was a home with a cracked foundation and some vacant land.

In the past

View today

According to the signage on the site as well as the permits, four new homes are being built here. But staring at it with our eyeballs, we see five homes. Anyone know what gives?

As you can see, the homes are three stories, and each have a garage. Interestingly, only the second and third floors were done modular, with the first floor (and ostensibly the basements) done on site. We would imagine that it just made more sense to do things that way, but we’ve never seen single family homes like this with cement-poured first floors.

Across the street

While the homes are somewhat compatible with the newish three story homes next door, they are radically different from the homes across the street, many of which possess a little more of a traditional Manayunk/Roxborough aesthetic. But whether they fit in with the surrounding homes or not, we imagine that these will sell briskly in the coming months, listed in the high $300K range as the sign on the site advertises. Not only does this speak to a neighborhood that’s continuing to see infill development all over the place, but it also speaks to the fact that Ridge Avenue is continuing to be seen by developers as an attractive place to do business. Hopefully, both trends will continue.