STRIP CENTER PUNISHMENT 
Houston’s “preeminent BDSM dungeon,” writes the Houston Press‘s Jef with One F, “started out as a simple one-room space in the Galleria area in 2010, but now hosts a multi-room facility that serves as one of the few full-time dungeons in the city.” A FourSquare listing reveals that Maison Noir is lodged inside “erotic fantasy superstore” Bizarre Times, in the crotch of a strip center on Winrock just north of Westheimer, across the street from the Penthouse Club and the Super Clean Carwash. “The facility is outfitted with many pieces of bondage furniture such as a vertical steel cage, a St. Andrews Cross, a CBT chair . . . multiple spanking benches, a vertical rack, and a bondage table.” [Art Attack] Update, 4/20: A couple of dominatrixes have sternly corrected us; Maison Noir moved from its Winrock location earlier this year. Photo: LoopNet
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Tag: Retail
The antique-bearing bungalow at the northwest corner of Westheimer and Dunlavy was demolished over the weekend. Due to replace it — and the site of the former-duplex-turned-art-gallery next door, which was destroyed in a fire last summer — a 4,829-sq.-ft. retail center. The planned new building will hold the same front sidewalk line along Westheimer as its neighbor, Agora. That’s likely a plus for fans sidewalkable Montrose. But will Westheimer get a front door? Edge Realty Partners is leasing the space for developer SFT Investments; the company’s brochure shows the 36-car parking lot tucked behind the building, facing Dunlavy:
Stalking the new Trader Joe’s is apparently a competitive sport in The Woodlands. And here’s the latest score, sent in by yet another Woodlands-area Swamplot reader who’s marking construction progress at the Woodlands Crossing Shopping Center at 10868 Kuykendahl, just south of Woodlands Pkwy. and across the street from H-E-B. Yes, the very first TJ’s in the Houston area looks for all the world like just another steel-frame-and-stucco building at the butt-end of a parking lot. Except, of course, this one’s got the Trader Joe’s sign attached to the facade’s high forehead:
Trader Joe’s has at last confirmed the second and third of the 3 stores that’ll constitute the idiosyncratic grocer’s Houston invasion. If you’ve been following Swamplot, you already know about these locations: In addition to the already announced shopping-center add-on in The Woodlands (recent construction photo at top), there’s another to be constructed in suburban-style big-corniced splendor (midde photo, above) on Voss just north of San Felipe. And yes — the company is now ready to admit — one in the just-decimated hollows of the once-grand Alabama Theater, last known as the Alabama Bookstop bookstore (bottom photo above).
Update: Olajuwon’s DR34M store is now open.
Hakeem Olajuwon hasn’t officially announced what he plans to do with Clear Lake’s landmarked Jim West Mansion, which he bought along with the surrounding 41-acre property at 3303 NASA Pkwy. in 2006. But a teaser website suggests that the former Houston Rockets center intends to transform the oil and cattle baron’s former estate — which served for a time as NASA’s Lunar Science Institute — into a flagship store for DR34M, the clothing line he introduced before a New Year’s Eve Rockets game in 2010, but that hasn’t drawn much attention since.
“The DR34M Spring 2012 Collection will launch online and in our new Houston flagship store,” announces the website at Dr34m.com. It’s illustrated with a photo of the 17,000-sq.-ft. Italianate mansion, which was designed by Houston city hall architect Joseph Finger and completed in 1930 not far from the current site of Houston’s Johnson Space Center. “We are busy designing a new line of clothing, collaborating on a collection of leather bags and accessories and sourcing modern furniture,” reads the brief copy, which is accompanied by Olajuwon’s signature.
THE END OF HOUSTON’S GREAT INDOORS You’d think images of a solid, giant big box store marked “The Great Indoors” set behind an enormous freeway-side parking lot would be fodder for local photographers hoping to capture views of Houston in all its ironic suburban splendor. Alas, no pix of the hulking, 130,000-sq.-ft. home furnishings megastore on the north side of I-10 just inside Beltway 8 appear to be available online. Quick, take a few while you still can! And send them to Swamplot — we need one to go at the top of this story, which it appears will serve as the very first announcement in Houston media that the store will be closing forever. Parent company Sears Holdings dropped the news back in February that all 9 remaining Great Indoors stores would be shut down. But the news, like the store itself, failed to catch much attention around here. A reader alerted Swamplot to the closing just over the last weekend, noting “big sales are just starting.” [Home Textiles Today] Photo: Send one you’ve taken here
Isn’t Weingarten Realty going to preserve some of the interior of its landmarked Alabama Theater as it makes the space ready for Trader Joe’s — or if that deal somehow falls through, some other tenant? Sure: The lobby and theater ceilings are being left alone, and a decorative plaster “medallion” on the north wall is supposed to remain in place — though it’ll be stripped of some outer layers. An upper section of the balcony will also stay, along with some light fixtures in the lobby. But other than those items, the entire 1939 theater space — or rather, what’s left of it after Weingarten encased the auditorium’s preserved sloped floor in concrete last year — is being gutted, according to plans drawn up for the project by Heights Venture Architects. A permit for the conversion of the historic Art Deco building to a retail “shell” was granted by the city earlier this week.
THE DEEP RETAIL DISCOUNTS AT HOUSTON PAVILIONS 
Four years after its opening, the troubled Downtown mall-office complex known as Houston Pavilions may sell for $50 to $75 million below the cost of its construction. To avoid foreclosure on a loan valued at $130.7 million, the developers turned the property over to a receiver late last year; Transwestern is now marketing the project for sale. Offices are fully occupied, but the big problem is the 59-percent-vacant retail portion of the project, says Real Estate Alert: “More than half of the retail tenants haven’t been paying full rent because the overall retail occupancy rate remains below the prescribed threshold cited in their leases. A buyer could convert about 42,000 sf of vacant retail space into offices to exploit downtown Houston’s booming office market . . . However, a conversion of all the retail space isn’t an option, because doing so would make it impossible to meet the retail occupancy threshold necessary for the existing tenants to pay full rent.” [Real Estate Alert; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user cjt3
Unverified rumors from 2 sources that appear to be separate have now made their way to Swamplot, but we have no details or confirmation. The first is that Fiesta Mart is considering taking the Randall’s Flagship location at the corner of Westheimer and Shepherd Dr.; the second is that Fiesta actually will move into the space — from the West Alabama and Dunlavy location now slated for an apartment building. If you’ve got more of the scoop, let us know!
- Previously on Swamplot: Apartments Planned for Montrose Fiesta Site Will Go Tall Mediterranean
Photo of Randall’s Flagship Shepherd Square: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
Live from the corner of Westheimer and Drexel, photographer Karen Dressel sends Swamplot this first view of the Highland Village Apple Store, which opens Friday at 8 am. The black paper covering the panels on the company’s first-ever glass-roofed, double-sided store was just removed this evening, in front of a dozen or so new-iPad camper-outers lined up in back.
- Drawings Reveal Highland Village Apple Store’s Secret Spaces Above Paper, Cupcake Stores
- Highland Village Apple Store coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Karen Dressel
The first-of-its-kind Apple Store scheduled to open to long lines of new iPad buyers 2 days from now in the Highland Village Shopping Center is much bigger than it appears from the outside. That’s because more than a third of the space in the 9,000-sq.-ft.-plus seemingly single story store is disguised from street view above 2 adjacent shops. A 3,510-sq.-ft. you-wouldn’t-know-it’s-there second floor extends above both the Sprinkles Cupcakes shop (shown at right) and the Paper Source to its west. Some of this secreted space may be open to customers at various times. Included in the hidden second story are a briefing room with a capacity of 46 people, as well as offices, work spaces, a break room, employee restrooms, and storage space.
CONFIRMED: NEW IPAD WILL HIT NEW HOUSTON APPLE STORE ON OPENING DAY 
To guarantee there’ll be Apple addicts camping outside the new Highland Village store on its opening day next Friday, Apple announced today that March 16 will also be the day the new iPad — yes, that’s what it’s being called — goes on sale for the first time. The Highland Village Apple Store, the company’s first not-in-a-mall store in Houston, will also be the first glass-front, glass-back, and glass-roof location to have entrances at both front and rear. Does that mean there’ll be 2 separate lines too? [Mashable; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Vinson
HIGHLAND VILLAGE APPLE STORE TO DEBUT WITH THE IPAD 3 The Apple Store still under construction at the corner of Drexel and Westheimer in the Highland Village Shopping Center will open just in time for the debut of the iPad 3. If, that is, workers scramble quickly enough to get the glass-roofed, walk-through structure ready to open by March 16th — which a super-secret source tells Chron tech columnist Dwight Silverman is the official opening date. And, uh, if Apple actually goes ahead and introduces an iPad 3 on March 7th. Oh yeah, and also if the new iPad actually goes on sale on the 16th or later. Please form your line to the left, in front of Sprinkles Cupcakes. [TechBlog; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Vinson
Lines aren’t forming outside Houston’s first non-mall Apple Store, and the glass on the front on back facades are still blacked out and protected — it’ll be a little while before the building at the corner of Westheimer and Drexel in the Highland Village Shopping Center is ready for business. But passersby were treated recently to a few glimpses of the store’s innards. Because it will be Apple’s first glass-roofed store with both front and rear entrances, you can expect the interior to turn out a bit different from other local locations.
Here are a couple of sneak peek views snapped through open doors and leaked to Swamplot:
The black curtains that shrouded the exterior scaffolding at the Apple Store construction site at the corner of Westheimer and Drexel in the Highland Village Shopping Center came down today, a reader reports. But a full reveal of Apple’s first-ever glass-roofed see-through-and-walk-through store — and (perhaps) whatever secrets lie below or next to it — will have to wait for a further strip-down: of the material still covering the all-glass front and back facades.
