JP orphanage EYed for housing

Jamaica Plain’s Home for Little Wanderers will soon be a home for just about anyone.

Developer Boston Residential Group has reached a deal to buy the nonprofit child welfare agency’s South Huntington Avenue property, tear everything down and put up an apartment building with as many as 200 units.

“We really like the Jamaica Plain neighborhood and location,” Curtis Kemeny, the company’s CEO, told the Herald. “We like its proximity to the Longwood Medical Area, to Angell Animal Medical Center, the Back Bay and to downtown employers.”

Boston Residential — which redeveloped the former Tower Records building on Newbury Street and created 65 luxury lofts at 285 Columbus Ave. — has started the permitting process and aims to start construction early next year. It’s a $75 million project, including the acquisition.

“It was a very competitive process,” Kemeny said of the negotiations with broker Colliers Meredith & Grew. “We were just glad we came out on top.”

The Home for Little Wanderers put the nearly century-old orphanage building on the block in August and plans to shift operations to its Longview Farm campus in Walpole, where it’s spending $23 million on a school and four new residential buildings.

A spokeswoman for the home, which leases its headquarters space on Huntington Avenue near Symphony Hall, declined comment yesterday.

The JP building was constructed in 1914, but it’s not a historic site or city landmark.

Kemeny said the new building is still in the design stage but would most likely be four or five stories — in line with the neighboring Goddard House and Sherrill House assisted-living facilities.

The apartments, primarily studios and one-bedroom units, will be “very high quality” but not at the same level of luxury as previous Boston Residential projects, Kemeny said, adding that he aims to make 13 percent of the units affordable in accordance with Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s housing preference.

“The general idea is to bring the residential fabric of Jamaica Plain down to this portion of Huntington Avenue toward Longwood,” he said.

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JP orphanage EYed for housing