Simon Property flies from Santa Barbara to Newark the week the company faces a key REIT conference

Simon Property flew from Santa Barbara Municipal Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport on June 3, a brief 15-minute hop that peaked at an altitude of just 375 feet — more a technical repositioning than a proper flight. The Gulfstream G550, tail N63HS, made the short dash across the Santa Barbara Channel after arriving earlier that afternoon from an unspecified Ohio stop.

The trip comes the same week the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) holds its annual REIT Symposium in New York City, running June 4-5, as covered by the ICSC’s official schedule. Simon Property Group, the largest U.S. shopping-mall REIT, is a regular attendee and presenter at the event, where retail real estate investment trends and mall traffic data dominate the agenda. Given the company’s Indianapolis headquarters and its CEO David Simon’s frequent travel between the Midwest, the West Coast, and the Northeast — the jet had flown from Santa Monica to Indianapolis just days earlier — this positioning likely allows for a direct morning meeting in Manhattan.

The owner’s recent flight log shows a familiar geographic loop: Santa Barbara appears as a recurring West Coast base, alongside Los Angeles and San Francisco departures. The Newark arrival suggests the plane is now staged for the REIT symposium — a plausible explanation for the seemingly trivial hop from a nearby coastal airport.