Shopping Tycoon David Simon, Simon Property Group CEO, Dies at 64

David Simon built an empire of shopping malls that reshaped American retail, and Long Islanders felt his influence every time they walked through the doors at Roosevelt Field or Smith Haven. Simon, the president, CEO and board chairman of Simon Property Group, died March 22 after a long battle with cancer. He was 64 and surrounded by family.

For those of us who have watched Long Island’s commercial real estate market for decades, Simon’s death marks the end of an era. His company didn’t just own malls here. It shaped communities, fought zoning battles, and made choices that determined what got built and what didn’t across the Island’s most contested parcels of land.

Simon Property Group operates Roosevelt Field Mall in Uniondale, along with Smith Haven Mall and the Walt Whitman Shops in Suffolk County. Those three properties alone represent hundreds of millions in commercial activity and thousands of local jobs. If you’ve eaten lunch at a food court or bought sneakers at a chain store on Long Island in the past thirty years, odds are you did it in a building David Simon’s company owned.

He was a remarkably young man when he took the wheel. Simon became CEO in 1995 at just 33 years old, joining the company’s predecessor, Melvin Simon and Associates, after a career in investment banking. At 31, he orchestrated the company’s public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, raising nearly $1 billion in what was at the time the largest real estate public offering in history. That kind of financial audacity defined his career.

Here on Long Island, the battle over the Syosset property became something of a local legend. Simon Property Group spent years fighting a rival development proposal from the Taubman Company, which had its own designs on the site. Simon’s team worked to build public opposition to the competing project and ultimately won out. The land became an Amazon distribution center after Simon bought it. Then, in a move that ended the rivalry entirely, Simon Property Group acquired Taubman outright in 2020 in a deal valued at roughly $3.6 billion. That acquisition turned a competitive grudge match into a corporate absorption. Classic Simon.

His family released a statement that captures the personal side of a man known primarily for boardroom dominance. “Our beloved husband, father, grandfather and brother poured his heart and soul into building Simon Property Group,” the family said. “We ask for privacy as we grieve our great loss.” Simon is survived by his wife Jackie, his partner for more than 40 years, five children, and seven grandchildren.

The tributes from within the industry have been significant. Larry Glasscock, director of the Sysco Corporation and the board’s newly appointed non-executive chairman, did not hold back in his assessment. “David Simon was, quite simply, the finest leader in the history of the retail real estate industry,” Glasscock said. “David’s legacy transcends financial performance. He was a leader of uncommon integrity, fierce loyalty, and deep personal conviction.”

The succession plan is already in motion. The board has named Eli Simon, David’s son, as the new CEO and president. Eli will continue in his existing roles as COO and director. That kind of family continuity is a deliberate signal to investors and tenants alike that the company’s direction will hold.

Whether Eli Simon can maintain what his father built is a fair question. Simon Property Group controls more than 250 properties globally across shopping, dining, entertainment, and mixed-use development. Managing that portfolio through a retail environment that has been turbulent at best for the past decade required skill that earned David Simon his reputation. The malls-are-dead crowd has been predicting collapse for years, and Simon kept proving them wrong.

For Long Island, the practical question is what this leadership transition means for the properties we actually use. Roosevelt Field and Smith Haven are not just shopping centers. They are economic anchors for their surrounding communities, and whatever happens at the top of Simon Property Group eventually filters down to the storefronts and parking lots that our residents navigate every week.

David Simon built something that outlasted plenty of skeptics. Now the family business carries on without him.