CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez says he was heading through downtown Caracas when he was shocked by the sight of a huge, nearly finished shopping mall.

"They had already built a monster there," Chavez said. "I passed by there just recently and said, 'What is this? My God!"'

So the often-impulsive president told an allied mayor to halt construction and said this prime block of urban real estate should be expropriated. He said the sprawling six-story building might be put to better use as a hospital or university.

The exercise in drive-by socialism illustrates Chavez's tendency to govern from his gut, and to leap in when he thinks other government agencies — in this case city planners — aren't doing their job.

The new Sambil mall was scheduled to open in the La Candelaria district early next year, packed with 273 shops, movie theaters and offices. Chavez complained that it would add yet more traffic to an area that's already so crowded "not a soul fits."

"Stop it, Mr. Mayor. And we're going to review all of it. And we're going to expropriate that and turn it into a hospital — I don't know — a school, a university," Chavez said during his weekly broadcast.

The newly elected mayor of the district, Chavez ally Jorge Rodriguez, told the president he would get the job done, though how remains unclear. Neither he nor Chavez spelled out possible compensation.

Constructora Sambil, the company building the mall, was closed for the holidays, and phones at its offices went unanswered.

Chavez, who has nationalized Venezuela's largest phone company, electric utilities and oil projects, suggested the property was too valuable to be left to commerce.

Despite Chavez's calls for moving toward socialism, many Venezuelans have tended to ignore his exhortations. Shopping malls with stores such as Louis Vuitton have sprouted up rapidly as windfall oil earnings have boosted the economy.