Mall magnate, Pacers owner Melvin Simon dies at 82

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH/AP) - Billionaire shopping mall magnate and Indiana Pacers co-owner Mel Simon died Wednesday at age 82.

Simon spent nearly 40 years leading what is now Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group , the nation's largest shopping mall company.

Mel Simon was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, but he built his empire from Indiana. Simon first moved to the Hoosier state in 1954 while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.

His rise to mall dominance started with Southgate, a single, simple strip mall in Bloomington, Ind. His self-named company eventually grew into Simon Property Group. Simon and his brother, Herb, grew the company into a retail giant with some 5,000 workers, 387 locations, and 263 million square feet of retail space.

Simon Property headquarters stand a block from one of the company's proudest achievement - the Circle Centre Mall in downtown Indianapolis. The project required years of planning, demolition of some old downtown buildings and the gutting of others so they could become a maze of mall space.

The project bogged down at times, leaving holes and hopes in the ground on several occasions. But persistence won out, and in 1995 the confetti flew, the ribbon was cut, and the shopping started.

"We're going to do big business..." Simon said at the time. "There are cities that think they can't do it. We're going to show 'em a new way of going. I think it's going to work great!"

A very different kind of shopping trip put Mel and Herb Simon in the city's sporting debt. In 1983, the brothers bought the proud but failing Indiana Pacers , keeping them in Indianapolis when the team and attendance were among the league's worst. In typical Simon style, team fortunes turned around.

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.

Simon's business of building and operating hundreds of suburban shopping malls across the country earned him a fortune that Forbes magazine estimated this year at $1.3 billion.

Mel Simon is survived by his wife of 40 years, Bren; his children, Deborah Simon, Cynthia Simon Skjodt, David Simon and Tammy McCauley; his grandchildren, Eli, Rebecca, Hannah, Noah and Sam Simon; Erik, Samantha and Ian Skjodt; Tasha and Dylan McCauley; and his brothers, Fred and Herbert. He was preceded in death by son, Joshua Max Simon.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Joshua Max Simon Primary Care Center at St.Vincent Hospital, Indianapolis.

Mr. Simon’s funeral will be held at Congregation Beth-El Zedeck , 600 West 70th Street, Indianapolis, at 11:00 a.m. on Friday, September 18th. A private internment will follow.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.