Melvin Simon: Owner Of NBA Pacers And US Malls, Dies at 82

by candice.tsuei | September 16, 2009 at 09:07 am

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Melvin Simon, co-owner of the NBA's Indiana Pacers and founder of Simon Property Group, has died at age 82, according to a statement issued by Simon Property Group Inc.

The billionaire, who built the family-owned real estate investment company into the largest U.S. shopping mall company, died after a short illness. With his brothers, Herbert and Fred, Melvin Simon founded Melvin Simon & Associates in 1960, the same year it opened its first shopping center in Bloomington, Indiana. The company was later renamed Simon Property Group and went public in 1993. By developing and operating enclosed suburban malls across the U.S., he has made a fortune of $1.3 billion as estimated by Forbes magazine this year.

“I can think of no one who was more accomplished as a shopping-center developer,” Eli Broad, co-founder of Los Angeles-based homebuilder KB Home, said in an interview. “And he did great things for all the retailers of America by producing these quality shopping centers coast to coast.”

Simon also was a Hollywood movie producer in the 1970s and '80s, when he scored a big hit with the raunchy teen comedy "Porky's," but he had many more flops.