November 13, 2015

The rest of the story

Did you know that Merle Hay Mall was named after the first Iowan killed in World War I?

Or that the site of the mall originally served as the home of St. Gabriel's Monastery?

The Greater Des Moines Community Band will present its first fall concert of 2015 in the food court of the mall at 1 p.m. Saturday.
 
It was the largest mall in Iowa in terms of gross leasable space until the Jordan Creek Town Center opened in 2004 in neighboring West Des Moines, according to Wikipedia. The mall encompasses Des Moines as well as Urbandale.

The site was the home of St. Gabriel's Monastery from 1921 until it was demolished in 1958. In 1956, the monks who lived there sold the site to Chicago-based developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum.

Originally called Merle Hay Plaza, the shopping site was planned as a strip mall before it was redesigned as an open-air plaza, according to Wikipedia.

Merle Hay Plaza opened on Aug. 17, 1959, with 31 stores, including Younkers. Later that year, Sears moved from downtown Des Moines to the plaza. A movie theater and six-story office building were added in 1965.

Merle Hay Plaza was enclosed and became Merle Hay Mall in 1972. Two years later, the mall expanded westward, more than doubling the size of the mall. By 2000, the mall was drawing 35,000 shoppers a day.

In 2000, Famous-Barr opened a new store in space formerly occupied by Montgomery Ward, which had closed in early 1999. The rest of the mall underwent a $20 million renovation.

As of 2009, the mall was anchored by Sears, Kohl's, Younkers and Target with about 95 in-line tenants, a food court and the largest movie screen in Des Moines.

The upper level became a Fix Brewhouse movie theater in mid-2014.


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