ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280041
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF THE ROANOKE TIMES
The stores will remain open while the facilities are given "a face lift," say the new owners.
Imagination Station, a three-store chain of toy stores, has been sold, dividing the ownership between the Blacksburg and Roanoke operations.
Shirley Hammond said Friday she sold the Roanoke stores - at Towers Shopping Center and the Roanoke City Market - to Cindy and Randy Mink of Rocky Mount. That deal closed Thursday, she said.
Also, a store in Bonomo's Plaza shopping center in Blacksburg was sold last month to Paula Casteel.
Terms of the sales were not disclosed.
Hammond said she sold the stores because she was "going on to other things." She said she wanted to spend more time with her 16-year-old son and to find "new challenges."
She opened her first toy store in 1985 on Grandin Road and moved that outlet to Towers Shopping Center in 1990. In October 1995, Hammond opened on downtown Roanoke's Market Street.
Cindy Mink said she and her husband have been involved for several years with operating Family Drugs at Bassett. They have also worked at a family farm.
"We're going to make some changes," Mink said of the two Imagination Station stores they will operate.
The stores will remain open while the Minks give the facilities "a face lift," she said. They plan to enhance the atmosphere, she said, and to add some new lines of toys.
The upgraded stores, she said, will be "very much akin to Roanoke and its train atmosphere."
The couple plan a grand reopening when their remodeling and new lines are completely installed, probably in the fall. Meanwhile, Mink said, the changes will be evolving slowly and in public.
Casteel, who previously worked at the Once Upon A Child store in Christiansburg and in restaurant management, said the Blacksburg toy store is her first venture in owning a business.
She plans to increase the store's inventory based on items customers have told her they want her to stock, Casteel said.
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