ORLANDO, Fla. – After seven years of waiting for a permanent way to honor the 49 people who died in the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016, the city of Orlando plans to step in and take control of the property.
On Thursday, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said calls from family members helped convince the city to enter into an agreement to purchase the Pulse property on Orange Avenue for $2 million. The city council will vote on the plan Monday.
“We’ve had a number of meetings with families and other survivors, and there’s real turmoil about what’s going to happen in regards to that,” Dyer said. “The onePulse Foundation had made it clear that they were moving off of that site. And we think it’s important to let families and the victims know that the memorial will be on that site.”
Pulse survivor Orlando Torres said he wanted to see a permanent memorial set up before he passes away.
“I’m glad that they looked after us and put this to a rest and at ease,” Torres said of the city. “This up and down donating and not getting it donated, third party needing their money, it’s a joke.”
It’s not the first time the city has sought to purchase the property since the shooting, one of the deadliest in American history. Dyer said the city sought to buy the property after the shooting for $2.2 million, but the owners of the property decided not to sell and set up the onePulse Foundation instead.
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After promises of a museum and memorial, and years of talk, the owner of Pulse, Barbara Poma, parted ways with the onePulse Foundation earlier this year. The foundation instead decided to build the memorial on a different site because Poma’s investment partner refused to donate the nightclub property.
The foundation ended its lease of the nightclub property for the temporary memorial earlier this year.
“I’m absolutely disappointed that there is not more movement towards the actual construction of a memorial, my choice would have been to not focus on the museum, but to focus on the memorial. And that’s what we’re going to do now,” Dyer said.
What that process will look like is not known yet. Dyer said there are no concrete plans yet for the memorial’s creation, including whether to make changes to the nightclub itself or even demolish it.
“What I ensure is the first step and that’s acquiring and having control of the property,” Dyer said. “After that, we want to step back and decide what is the best approach to ensure that in fact, we build that memorial in a way to honor the survivors and the families and the victims and to make sure that we get input from that same group as to what the best way to go about that is.”
It’s not known yet whether the onePulse Foundation will be involved.
Zachary Blair, who runs Victims First, a nonprofit that has been researching the tragedy, criticized the sale. He notes Poma is still in an ongoing court battle with victims on premise liability.
“Giving the Pomas more money is not the way to build a public memorial, especially when they are being sued by victims,” Blair said.
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