Pioneer shopping center magnate passes away at 93

One of the shopping center industry's early stars—and a man who endured many hardships, including internment in a Nazi labor came, has died.

Simon Konover, founder of The Simon Konover Company and Konover South, a diversified, fully integrated real estate empire based in West Hartford, Connecticut, and Deerfield Beach, Florida, passed away Oct. 20 at the age of 93.



Konover’s substantial business interests and legacy live on through The Simon Konover Company and Konover South, under the respective leadership of his daughter, Jane Coppa, CEO, and his grandson, David Coppa, CEO. The companies, established in 1957, have developed, constructed, owned and operated properties throughout the Midwest and Eastern U.S., stretching from Maine to Florida.



The company's extensive portfolio has included shopping centers, hotels, residential communities, office buildings, industrial buildings, mixed use and specialty properties. Over the course of its history, the Konover companies have owned and operated 15 million sq. ft. of retail; 20,000 apartment units; 2 million sq. ft. of office space; 4,000 hotel rooms and more.



Konover is recognized as an exceptional philanthropist, as a pillar of both the national and Hartford Jewish communities, and as one of Connecticut's outstanding civic leaders. His life was devoted to community, enormous generosity and kind deeds. A complete list of organizations that he was involved in, and honors received, could fill pages and are too numerous to recount here.



Konover’s amazing life story starts in Poland, where he born -- one of eight children. At age 16 at the start of World War II in 1939, he was interned in a Nazi labor farm, where he survived unimaginable indignities. He narrowly escaped to Russia, where he was drafted into its army. He endured many hardships as a truck driver delivering supplies to the front line during the Battle of Stalingrad. He was imprisoned for one year in a Siberian hard labor camp until the war's end in 1945. He survived the war with his brother Harold, but lost his parents, five siblings, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, extended family members, and friends in the Holocaust. In 1949 he immigrated to the United States, after first living as a refugee in France and Cuba.



Konover leaves his wife, Doris, of 66 years. He is also survived by daughter and son-in-law Jane and Robert Coppa, his son and daughter-in-law Michael and Vicki Konover, and his son Steven Konover. He also leaves four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.