Merle Hay Mall; Des Moines, Iowa
The largest city in the state of Iowa, Des Moines is a growing metropolitan area of over 500,000 residents and a glowing example of midwestern urbanity. Historically, its even keel and middle-American value have been an overall attractive package for developers. It is for this reason that Chicago retail magnates Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum chose the city to develop an early prototype of a shopping center which would become far more successful than they had ever imagined.
Originally the site of a Passionist Monastery from the 1920s through the 1950s, Abbell and Greenbaum worked with Younkers, a Des Moines-based department store chain still in business today, to develop what was initially called Northland Shopping Center. A strip mall in its early design stages, developers quickly realized the potential of the site and revamped plans to include two large department stores and four buildings around a commons area. Not only this, they changed the name to Merle Hay Plaza, named after the road the Plaza is on but also after the first Iowan killed in World War I. Construction on the Plaza was complete in 1959, with 31 stores including Younkers and a bowling alley which is still in operation on the site today. Later that same year, Sears opened, and other early tenants included Kresge’s, Bishop’s Buffet, and Walgreens. In 1965, a movie theatre and office tower were also added to the complex, making it one of the largest mixed-use facilities in the country at the time.
In 1972, as part of a nationwide trend, Merle Hay Plaza was enclosed, becoming Merle Hay Mall. The climate controlled, indoor environment allowed shoppers respite from the harsh, midwestern winters and also from rain and heat in summer. Then, in 1974, the mall doubled in size with a two-level western addition, adding anchor stores Montgomery Ward and a Younkers home store. This expansion was mainly a response to two other regional enclosed centers being built in the market, Southridge Mall and Valley West Mall, both of which still exist today.
Despite the mall’s enormous success at the time, tragedy struck Merle Hay Mall in November 1978 when a fire broke out in the Younkers store, killing 10 of the store’s 25 employees. To date, it is the most devastating fire in Des Moines’ history, and destroyed the original Younkers at the mall. The fire was caused by faulty wiring.
A new Younkers opened to replace the destroyed one within a year, and it was the only anchor change at the mall until 1991 when Younkers home store closed as Younkers exited the furniture and appliances market to focus on their fashion-oriented department stores which still exist today. That store was replaced by Kohls in 1993; then, in 1998, a controversy which eventually led to the closure of the Wards store ensued. It was deemed that Wards was operating a “discount store” instead of the “first class, full line department store” their lease required. So as a response, Wards just took off, leading to St. Louis (May Company) based Famous-Barr to fill the space in 2000. Also that year, the entire mall underwent a $20-million renovation.
In 2004, a major retail shakup occurred in the Des Moines market as a brand new retail destination opened in West Des Moines. Jordan Creek Town Center instantly became the category killer mall in all respects, consisting of an enclosed mall and two separate lifestyle center-style districts comprising not only retail but recreation, hotels, entertainment, and destination dining. The insanely popular Jordan Creek has consistently sucked shoppers in central Iowa away from the three other regional malls; however, due to extensive renovations and repositioning; the other malls seem to be holding their own. At Merle Hay Mall, Famous-Barr closed in 2004 and due to anchor shuffling Target was able to build a new store in the old Younkers space, as Younkers relocated to Famous-Barr’s old location.
Today, Merle Hay Mall is not only still the state’s largest enclosed regional center, but also the oldest in all of Iowa. According to ICSC, Jordan Creek Town Center has more retail space but the enclosed portion is smaller. Interestingly, while most of the mall is located in the city of Des Moines, the tail end of the western expansion has yielded a food court which is actually located in the city of Urbandale.
Possibly the most interesting aspect of Merle Hay are its design features. After the 1974 expansion, Merle Hay was left with two main wings. The older (1972) wing, which connected Sears and Younkers (now Target), has very high ceilings with large windows near the top and a wide corridor. In addition, this corridor was home to two separate “basement courts” - one which housed a bowling alley, and another which housed a restaurant and other entertainment options. Both of these basement courts were extremely open, but only the bowling alley one is currently open. Management appears to have shuttered the other basement court, as evidenced by the conspicuous placement of a large planter blocking the staircase leading to it from the main corridor.
The newer (western) wing, built in 1974, is absolutely amazing. It connects the main corridor, at center court, to Kohls, Younkers, and the food court at the west side of the mall. The best part, however, is the middle of this western wing where it randomly splits into two levels. To get from the one-level to the two-level part requires going up or down a half level, respectively. Also, the decor in this area is dated, and the ceiling becomes this massive archway which extends across this wide area. It’s really kind of unexpected, and at the end it goes back to one level again to continue to the anchors and a short side hallway veers right to the food court where the mall finally ends.
Most recently, Merle Hay Mall has been in the news for being a ’struggling’ mall - which I couldn’t disagree more with; however, the mall has lost $13 million in value since 2005 and is probably in need of some renovation to continue its overall viability into the future. The city of Des Moines has also become antsy as the erosion of its tax base is terrible for them, so in response they have enabled a TIF district in the area surrounding the mall. Monies from the city will help the mall and its neighbors update their facades and renovate existing locations to keep shoppers happy and in the end hopefully to get some people to ease off the gas pedal in the direction of Jordan Creek. However, on the flip side, more than a few residents are miffed that the city is giving this area TIF financing when there are several other sections of the city that are much worse off. Either way, I hope it helps, Merle Hay’s a cool place and we want to see it around for a long time.
The pictures featured here were taken in March 2008, when the mall seemed busy enough to me. I think if you want to see a struggling mall, you should take a look at a few others on this site… Feel free to add your own experiences or post something interesting you know about the mall.
on March 25th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Whoa, two mall updates in two days! That’s awesome!
on March 25th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Say, I think I read about this on Mall Hall of Fame…
EDIT: I did! http://mall-hall-of-fame.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
on March 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I’ve been at Merle Hay once back in Sept 2000 after a trip to Adventureland, an amusement park in the northeast of town. The mall was quite busy with very few empty spots. It was going through a remodel at the time so some parts of the mall were inaccessable. Famous-Barr was the only one to open in Iowa. Too bad Merle Hay has fallen on hard times, it was a very nice mall. I tought that Southridge would have failed first since it is on the east side of Des Moines.
on March 25th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
The split wing with the ramp…that’s amazing! All those stupid New Jersey malls (Monmouth Mall, Cherry Hill Mall) have boring stub escalators, but this is pretty unique.
on March 25th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Wow what a architetually strange mall. Especially the wing ramps. I don’t see how this mall is in danger, sure there are some empty spots but most malls are dealing with that anyway.
on March 25th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
The thing to remember is the percentage of empty stores vs the total number of stores. In other words keep vacancy rates as low as possible, generally under 10%.
on March 26th, 2008 at 12:36 am
www.cedar-rapids.org/fire/documents/Younkers%20Fire%20Public.pdf
is a link to a site with lots of photos of younkers fire
on March 26th, 2008 at 5:46 am
WOW, that Jordan Creek Town Center looks AWESOME.
on March 26th, 2008 at 10:04 am
That title image is all about what we love about old malls and how they clash with today’s look: large random brick walls, tunnelesque dark areas, and of course off-kilter architectural moves. That Sears made me “whoa” out loud with the huge glass-encased stairway right in front of the store!
Imagine how much of a gravy-draped steak this mall must’ve resembled in its day! Even with all the modern, bland white paint of the mall, it’s still lost in pockets of darkness and vacancy.
on March 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Sorry to double post, but I also wanted to note that Northridge Mall in Wisconsin opened in 1972 by the architecturally iconic mall tycoons at Taubman. I think it’s sadly been demolished as of today, but I find it interesting the same year this mall enclosed is the same year Taubman’s Northridge debuted a little ways north.
on March 26th, 2008 at 11:08 am
According to another blog, that Sears swallowed a Safeway at some point. That sure looks like the vestiges of Safeway arching in the one pic.
on March 26th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Most of Northridge is still there as far as I know. One media source erroneously reported the whole thing as having been torn down several years ago, but they really just demolished a couple of the anchors and that’s all. The main mall structure remains standing and blighted, unless they deconstructed it very recently. This article is correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northridge_Mall_(Milwaukee). Someday it’ll probably show up on here…(Read: When I find the pictures I took before it closed)
on March 27th, 2008 at 1:29 am
northridge is still standing only sears was torn down thay build a menards on that spot its wall touches the mall building dont know why thay did this but thay did also value city furuniture opened in the old boston store thay also built a pic n save in the parking lot
on March 27th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
This is the mall I grew up going to quite a bit. I currently live in Des Moines and while it was a stronger mall back when I was a kid, it’s still a fairly busy mall. The Sears wing is somewhat empty and there are other pockets of emptiness. Merle Hay’s management is pretty good at saving the day. Right now I’ve heard they’re planning on doing some shuffling and have several new stores waiting in the wings. For example, 5-10 years ago when Old Navy opened, it was a huge boost for the mall. Now Old Navy is going to be moved to a slightly less prominent spot in the mall and I believe an Ulta is going in its spot.
A little more insight.. The area demographics are pretty good for the mall. It’s easily the most accessable for Urbandale, Johnston and Ankeny, which are both growing really really quickly and Johnston is one of the wealthier suburbs. But something else is that it’s pretty accessable to inner city areas and it seems like there’s been more gang activity there in recent years.
All in all though, Des Moines malls have held up pretty well against the Jordan Creek monster. Southridge was hurting before Jordan Creek came in and while it’s still hurting, they seem to be bouncing back. Steve and Barry’s just opened there a few months ago and mall traffic has jumped. Jordan Creek prompted Valley West to renovate and they’ve been able to retain a lot of national stores as well as attracting new ones (Des Moines’ first Chipotle!!).
on March 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
westfield fox hills in culver city, ca has those half-level ramps too. they split the second floor into two halves. there are also escalators that go either between the first floor and first half of the second floor, first half of the second floor and second half of the second floor, or first floor and second half of the second floor. westfield is currently re-doing the entire mall, but hopefully the ramps will stay. part of “superbad” was filmed there.
on March 30th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I never saw a mall with a split level design like that before, sounds pritty neat.
Although the Fashon Show in Las Vegas has something of a split level design as well. The “Grand Hall” is a half story higher than the section nearest “the Strip”, requiring the use of escalators or an elevator. It would have been better from a design standpoint to install ramps like Merle Hay Mall.
Too bad that other malls didn’t embrace that kind of design element, it’s just a very cool use of space that could have gone to waist.
on April 1st, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Was any part of the original burnt Younkers building used for the present-day Kohl’s? I noticed two different types of brick on the exterior that seemed to match the burned pattern of the store on that link in the pdf. That is one cool mall with one creepy note in its history. I hope it survives, though: an underground bowling alley in a modern mall is a really rare novelty!
on April 1st, 2008 at 10:55 pm
jt the kohls is in a old younkers store fore home but the store that had the fire was the department store it sat ware the target is now . target is the third building in that spot there was the original younkers the second younkers (after the fire) and now target younkers is now in the old famouis barr store witch was wards when built,
on April 2nd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I noticed a few things in this article that are not true that need to be clarified. First Merle hay mall is no longer the largest mall in Iowa, Jordan Creek is the largest followed by Coral Ridge in Coralville then Merle Hay. Anyone from Iowa could have told you this. Merle Hays size is considerably small then both of these centers. Merle Hays management is the reason to blame for the malls downfall. I use to work in the mall and management just does not care about the mall or any of the tenants within the mall. The only reason they want to remodel is to increase the value of the mall so they can sell it. Abbell Credit has been trying to sell their piece of garbage mall for some time and now they figure the only way they can do it is to remodel a portion of it.
on April 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 am
I’m seeing this all over the place lately.
I guess it’s the new wave of managers fresh out of management school. They just don’t take pride in their work anymore, nor understand the responsibilities in handling a large multi-tenant business.
Yeah, remodel the mall, thus increasing the rent, thus forcing more long-term tenants out and making it hard for new ones to enter the market.
on April 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
If that be the case, what is the purpus of having a mall in the first place?
I would love an answer to that question.
on April 8th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Where’s the picture of the Younkers after the fire but before it was demo’d for Target?
on April 9th, 2008 at 1:11 am
The basement, at one time, featured a full McDonald’s if I recall correctly. There was another at an inline space at Valley West, but has since moved to the food court.
on April 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
And which one is the picture that features the closed basement with the planter?
on April 20th, 2008 at 2:14 am
You need to update your information according to the ICSC the GLA (gross leasable area) of the Jordan Creek Town Center is 2,000,000 square feet (in the enclosed shopping center), Coral Ridge has 979,415. Merle (lame) Hay has 960,000. These numbers are all GLA (gross leasable area). Also since Merle Hay has clsoed off most of the basement the numbers for Merle Hay are over inflated. So get over it, Merle hay sucks and is smaller then 2 other ‘real’ shopping centers in the state.
on April 29th, 2008 at 7:42 am
My father worked on that job (with Greenbaum) in 1958. He took me to see the monastery (and said that it was significantly more difficult to raze than they initially thought). But , they did it and did a remarkable job of completing the shopping center. He went on to build others in Cedar Rapids, Toledo, etc, however, I always felt that Des Moines was one of my most memorable cities that I have lived in.