Opened in , it is the second oldest regional shopping center in Iowa , and was the largest mall in Iowa in terms of gross leasable area before the opening of Jordan Creek Town Center in neighboring West Des Moines.
It was also the site of the deadliest fire in Des Moines' history, which killed eleven people in There is one vacant anchor store that was once Younkers - which is set for remodeling as an ice arena. The mall used to have a Sears which was demolished in Other prominent stores in the mall include Old Navy. Most of the mall is in the northwest part of Des Moines, but the wing that contains the former Younkers, Dinks Pickleball and the food court is inside the city limits of neighboring Urbandale.
Merle Hay Mall is independently owned by the Merle Hay Mall Limited Partnership , and the family of one of its original developers continues to manage the mall.
A Chicago -based company, Urban Retail Properties, handles the mall's leasing duties. The site of Merle Hay Mall was originally home to St. Gabriel's Monastery from until its demolition in In , the Passionist monks who resided there sold the monastery site to Chicago-based developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum. Abbell, in a interview, stated that the developers chose Des Moines for their mall because of the city's "reputation as a model urban area in middle America.
Merle Hay Plaza opened on August 17, It had 31 stores at the time of its opening, including its first anchor Younkers , as well as a bowling alley that is still in operation today. Other early tenants included a Safeway supermarket whose space later became part of Sears , Kresge , Bishop's Buffet which closed in , and Walgreens which was replaced by an Old Navy in Two years later, as Valley West Mall and Southridge Mall were under construction, Merle Hay Mall completed a major westward expansion that doubled the size of the mall.
