The building that has housed Meteor Guitar Gallery for the past decade is now up for sale, casting uncertainty on the venue’s future.

The historic building at 128 W. Central Ave. is a prime piece of downtown real estate listed at $3,990,000. The listing calls it an “investment opportunity” and notes that the venue has a month-to-month lease in the space. 

To secure the building as its permanent home, Meteor Guitar Gallery owner Les Key is putting together a coalition to purchase the building. He’s found some partners for the purchase and is seeking one or more additional partners to make a competitive offer. 

While he’s been organizing his offer, other potential buyers have been touring the building. Key is worried about what an outside purchase could mean for the venue’s rent.

“If it’s somebody buying it and we’re renting it off of them, and they’re buying it at $4 million, our rent is going to go close to $20,000 a month,” he said.

Higher rent could push the venue into focusing on high-dollar events. 

“We won’t be able to do the community stuff. It’s all going to be high dollar, high-price tickets and high-price rentals,” Key said. “Right now, we do a lot of fundraisers, nonprofits, class reunions, dances.”

In addition to private rentals, Meteor Guitar Gallery hosts concerts across many genres, with tickets normally ranging from $10 to $30. It opened in 2014, before many of the bars, restaurants and other downtown developments.

“There wasn’t anything when we started as far as live music in Bentonville,” Key said.

Meteor Guitar Gallery is a family business, run by Key, his wife and their two sons, with minimal outside help.

“We do pretty much everything — sweep, mop, set up, tear down, sound, all the booking. And it’s just a mom and pop shop completely,” Key said.

The historic building was once home to the Meteor Theater, which opened in 1927 in the era of silent films, according to Vintage Bentonville. 

Key feels his business complements the building’s historic roots and preserves its legacy as an entertainment venue.

“We’ve already got a lot of restaurants downtown, and there’s a lot of spaces for restaurants,” he said. “This place is about as unique as they get. You know, it fits this use very well and it’s one of the last remaining [buildings] that hadn’t been torn down or changed or turned into something different.”

The uncertainty around a possible sale has made booking shows and events for next year more complicated.

“We’ve booked a little bit for ’25 but we’ve been putting off most of them until we know for sure what’s going on,” Key said. “We had our first concert in April of ’15. So we’re coming up on that, and we’d like to have all this resolved before that, and have a 10-year reunion.”