by Arkansas Business Staff
An untimely death in 2019 and a departure of broadcast tenants last year and in April led to the recent sale of the former Media Gateway center at 1 Shackleford Drive in Little Rock. The buyer was Pinnacle Church of Christ, which plans to convert it into the congregation’s home.
Owner Matthew Davidge of New York sold the 31,000-SF building, which was packed with millions of dollars’ worth of broadcast equipment just a few years ago, for more than $1.8 million.
After losing a key Little Rock associate to a stroke in 2019, Davidge sold the news reading company he had run out of the facility to Newshub, which was subsequently acquired by Coastal TV Broadcasting.
“They were tenants of the building until they moved out April 30, 2022,” Davidge said.
“Jeff Lyle, who ran the TV news and origination business [The Media Gateway LLC], was taken ill in December 2018 and died in March 2019 without fully gaining consciousness,” Davidge told Whispers. “He was a longtime TV-over-IP visionary and a good friend. Very sad.” Lyle was just 56.
A new manager, Brian Short, took over TV operations at the site, and in August 2020 formed his own broadcast and master control outsourcing service for TV stations nationwide, TV Masters LLC.
“He moved it into his all new, all digital facility in Topeka, Kansas, in April 2021,” Davidge said.
Davidge hadn’t met with leaders of Pinnacle Church of Christ but was delighted to sell them “a great location.” The church currently meets at 11801 Fairview Road in west Little Rock, space owned by the Arkansas Easter Seals Society.
Church Elder Rod Cheatham said the four-year-old church has outgrown several locations, and will use the Shackleford Drive building as “our church home, essentially gutting out three TV studios for a worship center.”
Plans also call for using part of the space as a studio for creating online church content.