Abbell Credit Corporation has managed Merle Hay Mall since developers Joseph Abbell and Bernard Greenbaum built it in 1959, and CEO Elizabeth Holland now runs the property as the third generation of that family to hold the job. The mall opened as an open-air plaza named for Merle Hay, the first Iowan killed in World War I, on a site that had housed a Passionist monastery until 1958.
Enclosure came in 1972, and a westward expansion two years later doubled the property’s size as Valley West Mall and Southridge Mall were under construction elsewhere in Des Moines. The 1.1 million sqft complex still ranked as Iowa’s largest by leasable area until Jordan Creek Town Center opened in West Des Moines in 2004.
A 1978 fire in the mall’s Younkers store remains the deadliest fire in Des Moines history. The store rebuilt and reopened within the mall’s existing footprint, and litigation over the cause continued into the 1980s.
Both Younkers and Sears closed within 45 days of each other in 2018, and Holland’s company bought the vacant Younkers building outright that year rather than wait for a replacement tenant. Kohl’s relocated into the former Sears site after its 2021 demolition, while the original Kohl’s space became Dinks Pickleball, a 13-court indoor facility, in November 2023.
The mall continues to pursue an ice-arena conversion for the former Younkers space after the Des Moines Buccaneers withdrew from the original partnership in 2024. Holland has proposed operating the venue directly rather than leasing it to an outside hockey operator, a plan the city approved changes toward in April 2025 but which remains in development rather than completed.
