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Merle Hay Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall in Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. Opened in 1959, it is the oldest regional shopping center in Iowa, and was the largest mall in Iowa in terms of gross leasable area before the 2004 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 ten people in 1978. Sears, Younkers, Kohl's, and Target are the mall's anchor stores, while Applebee's, IHOP, and Starbucks operate on the outparcels of the mall. Other prominent stores in the mall include Ulta, Old Navy, and Staples. Most of the mall is in the northwest part of Des Moines, but the wing that contains Younkers, Kohl's, 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. ==History== The site of Merle Hay Mall was originally home to St. Gabriel's Monastery from 1921 until its demolition in 1958. In 1956, the Passionist monks who resided there sold the monastery site to Chicago-based developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum. Abbell, in a 1994 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." The mall was known as Northland Shopping Center early in its planning stages until Younkers executives suggested that it be named for Merle Hay, the first Iowan killed in World War I and namesake of the road in front of the mall, instead. Merle Hay Plaza was originally planned as a strip mall before it was redesigned as an open-air plaza with two department stores and four buildings around a common area shortly before construction began in early 1958. Merle Hay Plaza opened on August 17, 1959. 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. A second anchor store opened later in 1959, as Sears moved from downtown Des Moines to Merle Hay Plaza. Other early tenants included a Safeway supermarket (whose space later became part of Sears), Kresge, Bishop's Buffet (which closed in 1995), and Walgreens (which was replaced by an Old Navy in 1999). A movie theater and six-story office building were added in 1965. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Merle Hay Mall」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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