By Josh McKnight | The McKnight Team
The Montgomery County Planning Commission reviewed a revised plan for the roughly 115-acre former Melrose Country Club site in Cheltenham Township and found the developer had added about 33 homes since 2024. The project now totals roughly 443 residences.
Cheltenham Township real estate has not absorbed a project this size in a generation, and the county review was pointed about what the revision removed.
What the Revised Plan Actually Contains
The count breaks down as 351 townhomes, some of them age restricted, 12 twins, 80 assisted living apartments, and 30 traumatic brain injury care units. The previously planned small apartment building is gone.
County planners criticized that deletion directly, because dropping the apartment building reduced the variety of housing types on the site. They also flagged a scaled-back retail component, noting it undercuts the commercial tax base goals the township itself set.
The plan includes two retail spaces and walking trails connecting to the Tookany Creek trail network. It also includes three public pools costing up to $4.5 million that would replace the existing Conklin Pool, a piece already facing a lawsuit and resident criticism over transparency, pace, and bidding procedures. Reviewers flagged possible parking shortfalls at the pools, asked for a parking analysis based on Conklin usage, called for more shade trees around a largely paved pool area, and requested revisions to the stormwater plan behind some of the townhouses.
What 443 New Homes Actually Do to Cheltenham Township Real Estate
The instinct is that new supply pushes prices down. That is rarely how it works at this scale. New construction sets a ceiling, not a floor. Buyers price resales against it.
Set that against what the numbers show right now. The average Cheltenham home value is $404,438, up 1.6 percent over the past year, per Zillow data through July 31, 2026. Montgomery County overall sits at $499,755, up 2.4 percent. Cheltenham trades below its county and is growing slower than it.
A township appreciating at 1.6 percent is not a township at risk from new inventory. Cheltenham Township real estate could use a reason for buyers to look, and 443 rooftops is a reason.
Why the Housing Variety Complaint Matters More Than It Sounds
A county planning review carries no veto. It is advisory. So when planners spend their comments on the loss of an apartment building rather than on traffic or density, that is worth reading closely.
Three hundred fifty-one townhomes plus twins plus care units is a lot of units and very few housing types. Townhomes serve a specific buyer at a specific price. Apartments serve the household that is not ready to buy, and in a township where the average home runs $404,438, that household is the one most likely to become your buyer in four years. Removing the rental product removes the on-ramp.
Reasonable people land differently on whether a private developer owes a township housing diversity. Nobody is required to build the unit that produces the worst return. Both things can be true: the developer is responding rationally to costs, and Cheltenham ends up with less than it planned for.
If you own in Cheltenham, tell your neighbor the pool question and the housing question are the same vote. Most residents are only tracking the pools.
What This Means for You
If you are selling in Cheltenham in the next three years, you are selling into a window before this delivers. Use it. A resale competing against 351 new townhomes is a different listing than a resale competing against nothing, and the difference shows up in your finished basement and your kitchen. If you are buying, ask what phase you would be living beside. Construction sequencing on a 115-acre site determines which years are loud.
Large redevelopments reshape a township unevenly, and the streets nearest the entrance rarely experience it the way the streets a mile off do. Cheltenham Township real estate covers a lot of ground and a lot of price points. The current market picture on our Cheltenham PA homes for sale page will give you a sense of where your own block sits.
Thinking about buying or selling in Cheltenham Township? Let’s talk.
