High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 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.