Mel Simon, master of malls and sultan of suburbia, dies at 82
Filed under: Company News, People
Billionaire mall developer and Indiana Pacers owner Mel Simon died on Wednesday at 82. The founder of Simon Property Group (SPG), the largest public real estate company in the U.S., Simon was a major player in the postwar mall boom that both fed and benefited from America's vast expansion into suburbia.Simon's life encapsulated an era. In the 1950's, when he began his career as a developer, the shopping mall was in its infancy. Open-air shopping plazas had existed since ancient times, but postwar suburban development inspired large retail centers, leading to enclosed shopping behemoths. When Minnesota's 95-acre Southdale Center Mall opened in 1956, it was the country's first fully enclosed climate-controlled shopping center. (Simon later bought that property.)
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Recent Deaths in Business
Billionaire mall developer and Indiana Pacers owner Mel Simon died September 16 at age 82. Click through the gallery for a review of business leaders we've lost in 2009.
Matt Kryger, Indianapolis Star / AP
Matt Kryger, Indianapolis Star / AP
At roughly the same time, Simon began his career as a leasing agent for Indianapolis's Eastgate Shopping Center, an open-air mall which he later bought in the 1980s. Simon founded Melvin Simon and Associates with his brother Herb in 1960 and began by building outdoor strip malls. Soon, the firm expanded into the huge enclosed temples to commerce that gradually came to dominate the American shopping landscape.
By 1967, Simon owned more than three million square feet of retail property. Over the next decades, the company added more than a million square feet per year. In the 1980s, the Simons were opening three enclosed malls in the U.S. every year.
In the process, Simon also helped develop the concept of the anchor store. By building relationships with big department stores like Sears and JCPenney, he laid the groundwork for the marketing balance of today's malls, with huge tenants providing the structure for smaller boutiques. He also built the country's largest mall -- the Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minnesota -- in 1992.
In 1993, the Simons went public, naming their company the Simon Property Group. They raised $1 billion in what was then the largest real estate offering in history. Today SPG controls approximately 244 million square feet of retail property space.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-18-2009 @ 7:53AM
jc said...
Sorry to hear about this but malls are the reason small mom and pop businesses go under
Reply
9-18-2009 @ 8:40AM
Dave said...
Malls are the reason? not quite that simple that small town main street USA has shut down. Try Wal Mart and Target as being much bigger culprits. And you probably should examine how organized labor in large part forced companies to start the ball rolling on why now 90% of everything is made in China.
But small mom & pops didn't go under simply because malls got popular. It's basically when Americans per majority no longer cared about Made In USA compared to I can get it cheaper at Wal-Mart. When the unions got greedy and shiftless and let the Japanese make a better car back in the late 70s and 80s. Now, even though most US cars rival or surpass Japanese cars in build quality, you still have 90 million Americans convinced they have to drive a Honda because their 1982 Pontiac was a piece of garbage. You want consequences, you now have them.
9-18-2009 @ 6:51PM
Warren Pugh said...
Wait a minute 'Dave'. Since 2000 GMC Yukon and Tahoe vehicles and pickups with the same wiring configuration have been in production with one faulty running light and unless you are blind (and driving?) there are literally thousands of these vehicles on ours and Canadian highways.
And as usual when I complained in 2001 a woman with GMC in some far away Florida office said they had no problems and no complaints. Blatant lying just sends folks to Toyota. Sad, since the Yukon is one of the finest small trucks on the road. Cocky GMC cannot insult us.
WASP
Reply
9-18-2009 @ 10:11AM
tib52 said...
While are the US going broke? Billions in taxes are not being paid by people from other country in business in the states. They pay no tax for five years after that they change family members for another five years, go to there store they only hire only their people are some black people paid under the table about $8.00 per hr. One family owned about 8 stores I worked for one family who have about 8 stores they pad the books they earn about $500,000 and say they only made about $250,000 they use no computer for their business, look at the lottery state site you see that they fish through or buy by the book they win a lot of the instantly tickets the owner of the store, they sent a lot of their money back to their county if you could check with western union the gor. will see that know that they send about $7500 out of the country per day they get the employee to sent some money in their name also the same day. This tax evasion this is happen all over the US.
Reply
9-18-2009 @ 10:06AM
tib52 said...
Stop, Look, Listen
While are the US going broke? Billions in taxes are not being paid by people from other country in business in the states. They pay no tax for five years after that they change family members for another five years, go to there store they only hire only their people are some black people paid under the table about $8.00 per hr. One family owned about 8 stores I worked for one family who have about 8 stores they pad the books they earn about $500,000 and say they only made about $250,000 they use no computer for their business, look at the lottery state site you see that they fish through or buy by the book they win a lot of the instantly tickets the owner of the store, they sent a lot of their money back to their county if you could check with western union the gor. will see that know that they send about $7500 out of the country per day they get the employee to sent some money in their name also the same day. This tax evasion this is happen all over the US.
Reply