Industry champion McCabe dies.

William H. McCabe Jr., a lawyer-turned-developer and a major advocate for the shopping center industry during the 1990s, died Wednesday. He was 72.

McCabe, an ICSC trustee, retired in 1999 as senior executive vice president of development at New England Development, in Newton, Mass. He helped the firm become one of the most prolific mall developers in New England during the 1980s and ’90s.

McCabe distinguished himself also by working tirelessly on behalf of the industry. Through the 1990s he was among a core group of volunteers who shaped and energized ICSC’s government-affairs activities, giving the industry greater political clout, and regulators and politicians a better understanding of the business. He was chairman of the association’s national government-relations committee, its federal political action committee and its environmental issues subcommittee, which he founded. He was also chairman of ICSC for the 1999–2000 term.

McCabe’s soft-spoken, studious style and broad knowledge of the industry served him well, whether he was seeking approval for a project at a raucous town-hall meeting in New England or leading a delegation of executives through meetings with Congress members.

McCabe was tapped in 1977 by Stephen R. Karp, New England Development’s chairman, CEO and founder, who built one of the first enclosed malls in the Northeast in 1972. Karp wanted McCabe to help him ramp up his mall development efforts in the region. Many of the projects McCabe helped develop were suburban malls, but others were complicated urban renewal projects, such as CambridgeSide Galleria, a 1 million-square-foot, mixed-use complex near downtown Boston that opened in 1990.

“He had a very relaxed personality,” said Karp. McCabe was a skilled and patient listener, Karp says, and was always well prepared at local government meetings to handle questions and concerns about the projects.

McCabe also had a strong understanding of the real estate side of the department store business. He was a graduate of Villanova University School of Law and practiced law in New York City before joining the real estate department of J.C. Penney Co. From there McCabe joined New England discounter Zayre Corp. He left Zayre to work for General Growth Properties in 1973 as a vice president of development. After a few years there, he joined what would become New England Development.

McCabe was “very content to be behind the scenes, but professionally he was recognized as one of the best in the business,” said John M. Ingram, principal of Woburn, Mass.–based Ingram Realty Advisors and an ICSC trustee and past chairman.

Beginning in the 1980s McCabe became involved with ICSC, gravitating toward government affairs because of his extensive dealings as a developer with state and local officials.

“Among other significant contributions, Bill’s role with ICSC and government relations was pivotal in placing ICSC where it is today in terms of Alliance programs and other governmental relations prominence,” said ICSC President and CEO Michael P. Kercheval.

He inspired others to get involved too, stressing the importance of meeting regularly with members of Congress and federal regulators to give them insight into the industry and the issues affecting it, from bankruptcy laws to the collection of Internet sales tax.

McCabe “understood the intricacies of the issues and had a way about him that made people believe in him,” said Gary D. Rappaport, SCSM, SCMD, SCLS, CDP, president and CEO of the Vienna, Va.–based Rappaport Cos., an ICSC past chairman and a trustee who has been involved in government affairs for years. “You’d say, ‘That is a hard-working, honest man who understands what he is talking about.’ ”

As chairman of the ICSC PAC, McCabe was an adept fund-raiser. With a bigger coffer, the industry gained more political clout on Capitol Hill and could support sympathetic candidates. “He raised lots of money from trustees and past trustees, and that surely helped get ICSC better known on Capitol Hill,” said Rappaport.


McCabe served on the board of overseers of Newton-Wellesley Hospital, in Newton, and was an adviser to his family’s sporting goods chain, Thunder Sports.

“Bill McCabe seldom took no for an answer — not a final one that is,” said John T. Riordan, president of ICSC until 2001 and a lifetime trustee. “When dealing with local, regional, state and national authorities, he brought knowledge, persuasion based on that knowledge, and a polite insistence in the correctness of his cause.”

McCabe is survived by his wife Linda, “his most important partner in all he did,” according to Riordan. She “knew both how to encourage and to challenge him to greater and greater success.”

Three children also survive him: William, Michael and Jennifer Regan.