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The Boston Planning Department board last week approved plans by the owner of the Bunker Hill Mall in Charlestown to replace the  99 -  home of steak tips and a 1995 shooting that left four alleged mobsters dead - with 240 apartments.

Plans by New England Development call for a, $85-million, six-story building to replace the 99 and some vacant land at Rutherford Avenue and Austin Street.

The proposal calls for 48 affordable units - 20% of the total - with 31 to be rented to people making no more than 70% of the Boston area median income, 17 to people making up to that level. The project was not required to provide any affordable housing because it meets the lot's zoning requirements and because plans were filed before the city changed its affordable-housing requirements to require all large projects, regardless of zoning compliance, to provide affordable units.

The plans call for 62 parking spaces. 

New England Development, which has owned the mall since 1977, says the building is the first stage of a long-range plan to completely replace the current mall with a series of new residential and commercial buildings. However, the company says it will only introduce plans for the rest of the mall as current tenants move out and as economic conditions allow. Any additional buildings would require separate city and community review.

Replacing the 99 will bury the scene of one of the last major spasms of mob violence in Boston: The Nov. 6, 1995 "steak tips massacre" that left four North End men dead and a fifth gravely wounded.

According to a 2008 Supreme Judicial Court summary of the incident, Damian Clemente, who had been having lunch there, frantically called his father Anthony when he spotted five men associated with the local mob walk in and sit at a table near him - members of the Luisi and Sarro families - who had been going after him for a year. "The Luisis and the Sarros were following, harassing, and threatening Damian, apparently because Damian was selling drugs in the North End section of Boston and not being properly respectful, i.e., paying money to the Luisis."  

It didn't help that the day before, Damian and a pal, who had crossed the bridge with him for lunch at the 99, had beaten up Robert Luisi's nephew at a North End coffeehouse. So Anthony Luisi quickly got to the 99, with a gun ready:

Anthony entered the restaurant, went to the Luisi-Sarro group and asked Robert Luisi, "What's going on?" Robert Luisi replied: "It's your fucking kid." Anthony asked, "Why is it always my fucking kid? This kid is nothing to you." Roman Luisi jumped from the booth, and the look in his eyes changed. Anthony stuck out his left hand and backed up somewhat, saying to Roman Luisi, "It [doesn't] have to be this way." Anthony saw Damian and Perez walking toward the Luisi table and saw Roman Luisi put both his hands down toward the fanny pack he was wearing in front. Roman Luisi said something about no one getting out of there alive. Anthony shoved his son and Perez behind him and shot Roman Luisi. Sonny Pelosi yelled and Robert Luisi stood up. Anthony shot Sonny Pelosi. Robert Luisi reached for Anthony, who shot him in the head. Anthony heard the sound of shots, and believed he was being shot, but was not certain of the source. He saw Roman Luisi lying on the ground and shot him twice more, once in the back and once in the head. Anthony then saw Anthony Sarro moving and shot him again. Anthony went "to drop the hammer on [Richard Sarro]," but his gun was now empty.

Somewhere in all this, Damian Clemente fired a fatal shot as well. He and his pal were caught nearby - by two Everett cops who happened to be having lunch at the 99 when the gunfire erupted. Anthony Clemente was arrested the next day at Charlestown Municipal Court, when he showed up to support his son during his arraignment.

A jury convicted the Clementes of first-degree murder. 

They eventually appealed their life sentences, after the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in a separate case that people facing murder charges could raise "first aggressor" evidence that they killed in self defense. In Anthony Clemente's case, that would have meant showing that Roman Luisi was a  notoriously violent man and that it was unfair that Clemente's lawyer was unable to raise questions about just what was in his chest-worn fanny pack as he stood up.

But in its 2008 ruling on their appeals, the state's highest court said the judge in the case had given their lawyers more than ample room to argue self defense and raise Roman Luisi's past behavior, so the new legal doctrine wouldn't have made any difference.

201 Rutherford Ave. filings.