[8][9][10] A movie theater and six-story office building were added in 1965. Photo from the, Now we enter the coolest part of the mall, the Bridge Court. Stores line the bottom floor of the Bridge Court. Between the loopholes of eclipses, move-in dates, and quick planning, I found myself in Sumter, SC, very unexpectedly. Montgomery Ward left the mall in 1998 following reports that the store was more of a discount store instead of the traditional Wards. Merle Hay Plaza opened on August 17, 1959. On April 18, 2018 it was announced that Younkers would be closing, as the parent, Bon-Ton Stores, was going out of business. "[5] 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. Here's an awkward angle down the Sears corridor. Younkers quickly jumped at the opportunity to move, and did so, leaving their original spot. Find it at Merle Hay Mall. Here's a display celebrating the state of Iowa. The road the mall is located on was also named after the fallen soldier. It served its purpose and served it well, and 60 years as a shopping center is nonetheless impressive. This layout would remain undisturbed for about a decade. By 2000, Merle Hay Mall attracted an average of 35,000 shoppers per day. Sort A-Z. Oddly enough, there are plenty of old logos across Iowa. Sears entrance facing Merle Hay Road. Note : I was unable to capture any interior photos or exterior photos aside from the anchors and the sign. The Merle Hay Mall ppened in 1959, and it's the oldest shopping center in the state. But as this mall will show you, history and good looks don't make a successful mall. View Printable Map. And in this field, Merle Hay is really the category killer of the bunch. EXPO Piercing & … And if you're new here, that's not a compliment (see : The Younkers' jet black entrance isn't original from Ward's. Probably not far behind is Sears, which even though it will be the only Sears in a 120-mile radius in only a few weeks, Sears has truly fallen off in the past decade. Sure, it was a Wednesday evening about 30 minutes before closing, but that won't matter much later on when Younkers leaves. Here's quite the treat: an original Sears entrance like no other. Every one is different. There were also mid-year protests by various groups, principally the Black Lives Matter organization, which resulted in some destruction of private property and criminal trespass. Discover (and save!) The store closed on August 29, 2018. [22] In 2013, Dunham's Sports moved out of the mall, with MC Sports replacing it. You can choose from 54 hotels and other accommodations within 5 miles of Merle Hay Mall, including these picks: A short visit to Merle Hay Rd. As much as I want this mall to survive and be rebuilt into its former self, the damage may have already been done. Merle Hay Mall reopened Monday for shoppers after a night of mopping up from demonstrations that devolved into vandalism and minor looting but ultimately ended peacefully. This leaves Target, stuck in a small and aging store in an aging mall. Restaurants near Merle Hay Mall Restaurants in this area are known for Italian, Steakhouse, American, French and Latin American cuisines. LDS Church. [21], As of 2021, the mall is anchored by Kohl's (73,799 sq ft) and Target (126,483 sq ft) with two vacant anchors last occupied by Younkers (165,000 sq ft) and Sears (223,000 sq ft), with over 60 inline tenants including the food court along with a vacant portion of the building which had been a single-screen movie theater with the largest movie screen in Des Moines. Wide hallways show homage to the formerly-outdoors mall. Generating over $150 million a year in sales, Merle Hay Mall is a household name and … Aces Barber & Beauty – OPEN. Polk county courthouse. To the left of Sears is this display commemorating the mall's namesake, Merle Hay. The Nineties would bring a littany of anchor changes to the mall. your own Pins on Pinterest Merle Hay Mall is an enclosed super-regional shopping mall in Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States. There are probably some better career paths you could go down instead of closing out a department store. View. This post will be updated and expanded as more contact ways are established. and you'll find the best pizza in Des Moines IA at Felix and Oscar's. [27] On July 13, 2018 Sears announced they will also be closing at Merle Hay Mall. Principal anchors are Target, Kohl’s, Younkers, and Sears. Judged Show & Display. Anyone from Iowa could have told you this. Not only did every mall in the area suffer from down sales the year after its opening, the Southridge Mall on the southern side of town pretty much died because of it. The store was expanded and renovated with the announcement that St. Louis-based Famous-Barr would open their first Iowa store at the mall. Sometimes a city's best can be simply ignored as another mall that is simply doing well. [11], In a 1994 interview with The Des Moines Register, Iowa State University economist Kenneth Stone stated that Merle Hay Mall successfully adapted to the changing lifestyles of the 1960s and 1970s by offering longer shopping hours during a time when downtown Des Moines merchants began restricting their hours. The mall's anchor stores are Kohl's, Flix Brewhouse, H&R Block, Target, Ulta Beauty, Shoe Carnival, Merle Hay Lanes, LensCrafters, Massage Heights, and Ross Dress for Less. On another note, where is the seating for these restaurants? [5] Author and Des Moines native Bill Bryson commented on how Merle Hay Mall's opening changed Des Moines in his 2006 memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: "My father never shopped anywhere else after that. Situated in one of the most plain and mild parts of the world, is the Merle Hay Mall, one of the most distinct and wild malls around. There are 2 vacant anchor stores that were once Younkers and Sears. In 1956, the Passionist monks who resided there sold the monastery site to Chicago-based developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum. Explore the family-friendly area of Urbandale—festivals, shopping, and sights from Living History Farms to Merle Hay Mall. [23] Merle Hay Mall's owners constructed a new main entrance to the mall and relocated some retailers to other areas of the mall in order to create space for new "junior" anchor stores with exterior entrances. View Printable Map. I will say these signs are very attention-grabbing. [16] Lawyers representing Younkers and the families of the eleven victims sued more than 20 companies that manufactured or were associated with polyvinyl chloride, including Monsanto Company and Underwriters Laboratories. Tragedy would strike the mall in 1978. [22] During the Christmas holiday season there are several businesses which occupy space in the mall temporarily too. Fri. & Sat., August 16 & 17, 2019 – 10 AM to 9 PM Sunday, August 18, 2019 – 12 NOON to 5 PM. Attend a concert or live event at Iowa Events Center. George Floyd Protest at Target, Merle Hay Mall. [22] It has undergone several renovations over time to remain a viable shopping center. He is the namesake of Merle Hay Road and Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines. Take photos of old Claire's logos while you can, given their bankruptcy. According to Elizabeth Holland, the CEO of Abbell Credit Corporation, the Des Moines area is large enough to support only two shopping malls, and the goal of the Merle Hay Mall redevelopment is to make it "become one of the two surviving shopping malls."[22]. The entrance looks out of place compared to the rest of the mall. Staples announced in late-2016 that it would be closing their store in Merle Hay Mall with the actual last day of business occurring on February 4, 2017. Merle Hay Mall Cinema in Des Moines, IA The Merle Hay Plaza Theater was opened by Tri-State Theatres on January 28, 1966 with Richard Burton in "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". I would have killed to see this section before Flix opened. The nearly 60 year-old anchor was one of the original stores but ended business at the mall in October 2018 which left Kohl's and Target as the only anchors. Kohl's from the outside is pretty run-of-the-mill. [6] 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.[7]. In terms of layout, this is a pretty simple mall. Camp Dodge Pool. A move has a better-than-preferred chance of happening. View. Urbandale is home to 15 hotels and other accommodations, so you can find something with the amenities you're looking for. Shortly after completion, the mall's name was changed from Northland Shopping Center into the Merle Hay Mall. We shopped at the Merle Hay Mall (Plaza) location before they closed in the stores and it became a mall. The proper food court, or the "Local Eats Food Hall" isn't anything special for the most part. The aftermath of the Younkers fire. In the lead-up to the 2020 election, all eyes are on Iowa. Store sign facing Douglas Avenue, as the sun sets on another casualty of the downfall of brick-and-mortar retail. The Mall of Georgia, located in the Atlanta suburb of Buford, deserves its name. Norridge Commons. A Chicago-based company, Urban Retail Properties, handles the mall's leasing duties. Even more, the 50's Sears entrance is hard to hate and easy to love with the hangar curve and off-kilter entrance. Oddly symbolic. A dramatic view up to Flix. [15] The store was closed for nearly a year in order to rebuild. In early 1979, Des Moines fire officials announced that a hydrogen buildup caused by alkaline water leaking from the store's heating and cooling system caused the fire. Unfortunately, the Mall at Jordan Creek opened up a year before. The original Younkers at Merle Hay used to look like this previous to the fire. The most distinct wind runs from the main entrance area to the Younkers and Kohl's. I of my fondest memories of the store was seeing a visiting artist from Des Moines, who did portraits of customers on the spot in the store near the … Nestled in Litho... Back in the day, the open-air mall was all the rage with its brother the enclosed mall. Younkers was located where Target currently is. Unfortunately, that fountain doesn't remain today. Detailing retail history and abandoned airports with words and photos.......................................................join and follow us! While the mall isn't totally lacking, there are some key cogs missing that could determine whether this mall makes it in the long run. This area was once a fallout shelter many decades ago. Sort by Category. Merle Hay Mall is a 1.1 million square foot, enclosed regional mall and office complex. [26] In 2015, Deb closed. Barring miracles, it's unlikely we will see Merle Hay in the same way as generations past. Applebee's, IHOP, and Starbucks operate on the outparcels of the mall. Picture Window theme. A Des Moines firefighter, after nine years on the department, used that phrase Monday to describe the blaze that killed 11 persons Sunday morning at the massive Younkers store in Merle Hay Mall. Abundance Junky – Open Limited Hours. I've never noticed this with any other state. 2006: Trisha Joseph joined the team. Instead, Ward's rocked a plain beige look that didn't look like much of anything. Merle Hay Mall. By 2… 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. [4], The site of Merle Hay Mall was originally home to St. Gabriel's Monastery from 1921 until its demolition in 1958. Merle David Hay (July 20, 1896 November 3, 1917) was the first Iowa serviceman and perhaps the first American serviceman to die in World War I, along with Corporal James Bethel Gresham of Evansville, Indiana and Thomas Enright of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.1 1 Early life 2 World War I service 3 See also 4 References 5 External links Merle Hay was born on a Carroll County, Iowa … In 1956, the Passionistmonks who resided there sold the monastery site to Chicago-based developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum. 2005: Josephs closed the Merle Hay Mall location and opened the new flagship location on Mills Civic Parkway. Originally published, Nov. 4, 2003, in rememberence of the 25th anniversary of the fire. merle hay mall. [29] In November of 2020, the Des Moines Buccaneers hockey team announced they would build a new sports facility in the old Younkers and adjacent areas. While I think large retail corporations (Simon or GGP) are indifferent to the success of a mall, that is still nonetheless interesting. [22] As a result of the redevelopment, Old Navy has relocated to a smaller space within the mall. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review. There is an actual food court in Merle Hay, between Younkers and Kohl's. Westgate Village Shopping Center. Those houses were in the Westover and 54th Street plats. The answer lies in the confines of the mall itself. One of Des Moines' most deadly fires still burns 25 … A view of center court with my back to Old Navy. If not, that's a pretty severe waste of space. The original Younkers store at Merle Hay Mall was destroyed by a fire that broke out on the morning of November 5, 1978. Jake Joseph joined the team. Here are stories of three other Iowans whose service and sacrifices stand tall among the forgotten soldiers of the Great War. Farther down is a Panda Express. A mall's closure is always a sad moment for those who spent their childhood and most memorable times inside of it, but maybe it was just time for the place to go. Looking back at the entrance wing. The mall would open in mid-1959 as what was essentially a strip mall, anchored by Sears, a Kresge five-and-dime, and Younkers, a hometown department store that still remains but for not much longer as it is owned by Bon-Ton. [18] Kohl's replaced it in 1993. This area is the only two-level section of the mall, apart from the anchors. “There’s nothing changing faster in the last 23 years that I’ve been doing this, than the retail landscape,” said Holland. Get updates of all things Iowa politics delivered to your inbox. This is an interesting, well-written article. It was the biggest, too, at the time of the 1978 Younkers fire. Wisconsin-based Kohl's entered the vacant space two years later. In 1972, the mall was enclosed, bringing shelter and AC to those escaping the Midwest's volatile climate. Other prominent stores in the mall include Old Navy. The project also would relocate the mall's existing Kohl's store to the site of a former Sears store facing Merle Hay Road, where it would anchor a planned shopping plaza. I took a few various photos of the inside of the Younkers. Home. 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. You know what I said about the lack of depth? [28] In December 2019, GameDay arcade and restaurant opened in the mall. It is accessible from both outside and inside the mall. Kohl's has been under the weather as of late as well, and large closings lists could be coming down the road. On the right is an Auntie Anne's, with a play area in front. The site of Merle Hay Mall was originally home to St. Gabriel's Monastery from 1921 until its demolition in 1958. It was also the site of the deadliest fire in Des Moines' history, which killed eleven people in 1978.[3]. Famous-Barr would open in 2000, but would only stick around until 2004, when the store closed. 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). 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. Most of the mall is in the northwest part of Des Moines, but the wing that contains the former Younkers, Kohl's, and the food court is inside the city limits of neighboring Urbandale. Visit Blank Park Zoo or Adventureland Amusement Park. 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." Sears is in the back with Kresge's in the middle. A retail anomaly is when something dies but not in the normal fashion. Major tenants include Mercy Clinic, Veterans Administration and the United States Postal Inspector. The blaze nearly destroyed the entire store, and it was shuttered for a year for repairs. The low-lying ceilings and unimpressive storefronts give off strong Hull Storey Gibson vibes. Target's location used to house Younkers. Not only this, the mall is been in the hands of the original family all this time. 2016: Josephs merged the Valley West and Mills Civic location. On March 10, 2008, the Des Moines city council agreed to rezone the area around Merle Hay Mall into a tax increment financing district in order to help the mall's owners pay for future renovations. By the early 1960s, people exchanged boasts about how long it had been since they had been downtown. Play a round at Waveland Golf Course. These are some awfully long entrance wings. While having a full anchor set is nice for a mall in its position, it's not 2007 anymore. While I don't see the company failing in at least the next 20 years, its easily possible the store moves to greener pastures in the area. Angelica’s Design – OPEN. One you probably did count was Smyrna's Cumberland Mall,... http://skycity2.blogspot.com/. If you bring up all the Atlanta area malls, one is likely to go unnoticed. I did some copyediting, and a few things came up during the review: "It was also" is repeated in consecutive sentences in the lead. While there are many things I can say I like about this mall, the hallways feel like they are missing something. Dec 28, 2015 - This Pin was discovered by Angie Frank. I really do like the skylights, even though they make the mall look like a bunker in a way. The move came as the mall's assessed property value had declined by over $13 million since 2005. This Claire's is located in the Sears wing. 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. If it's gone in a few years, while it won't be a shining moment for the city of Des Moines, perhaps we can view it as bittersweet. In 1991, the Younkers Home Store was shuttered as the chain left the furniture and appliances market. "The building was totally involved (when we arrived), both floors. Accessories. Besides, there's a Target three-and-a-half miles away in Urbandale, and another one three-and-a-half miles away in Clive. You can never go wrong with a Sears exterior. This review is transcluded from Talk:Merle Hay Mall/GA1. Exterior of the "Going Out of Business" store. Merle Hays management is the reason to blame for the malls downfall. A feature many malls lack today are ramps and large stairways. Abbell Associates, LLC 30 N. LaSalle Street Suite 2120 Chicago, Illinois 60602 Contact. 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.
What Does Daisy Represent In The Great Gatsby, Modern Tables Plan Fallout 76, Spell Power Wow Shadowlands, Treadmill Error Code E06, Disston Saw With Nib, Chicago Electric Rotary Tool Parts, Bad Boy Magnum 54 For Sale,