Melvin Simon | Mall developer, 82

Melvin Simon, 82, the son of a New York tailor who started what is now the country's largest shopping-mall company and owned the NBA's Indiana Pacers with his brother, died yesterday, a spokesman said.

Les Morris, a spokesman for Simon Property Group, which Mr. Simon spent nearly 40 years leading, confirmed his death but said he could not discuss the circumstances.

Simon Property Group has full or partial ownership of more than 300 shopping malls in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Mr. Simon's interests extended to politics as he and his wife were major Democratic Party donors and to Hollywood, where he was best known as a producer of the raunchy teen comedy Porky's.

But his main business was building and operating enclosed suburban malls across the country, netting him a fortune that Forbes magazine estimated this year at $1.3 billion.

In the Philadelphia region, those mall properties include Oxford Valley Mall and Lincoln Plaza in Langhorne; Franklin Mills in Philadelphia; Huntingdon Valley Shopping Center; Springfield Mall (co-owned with Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust); Granite Run Mall in Media; the King of Prussia malls; Montgomery Mall in North Wales; and Hamilton Mall in Mays Landing.

Mr. Simon's philanthropy gave $50 million for Indiana University's cancer center and $10 million to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. - AP