Years after Pulse nightclub shooting, scaled-back plans for memorial underway

Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. — Survivors and families of victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre were now hoping to have a permanent memorial in place for Wednesday's eighth anniversary of the attack by a a lone gunman who killed 49 people at the gay-friendly club in Orlando, Florida.

Instead, new, scaled-back projects are only now emerging, following a botched effort to build a multimillion-dollar memorial and museum by a private foundation that dissolved last year last.

The city of Orlando bought the nightclub property last year for $2 million, and he has since outlined more modest plans for a memorial. The original idea for a museum was scrapped, and last week city leaders formed an advisory board to help determine what the memorial will look like.

“We're really hoping to find a number of family members to be on this committee, as well as survivors,” said Larry Schooler, a facilitator charged with guiding the memorial effort. City officials said the goal is to complete the memorial by 2028 at the site near downtown Orlando.

Until last year, efforts to build a memorial had progressed in fits and starts since the massacre.

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen opened fire during a Latin Night celebration, killing 49 people and injuring 53. At the time, it was the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. But it was surpassed the following year when 58 people were killed and more than 850 people were injured among a crowd of 22,000 at a country music festival in Las Vegas. Mateen, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, was killed after three hours of clashes with police.

Barbara and Rosario Poma as well as businessman Michael Panaggio previously owned the property, and Barbara Poma was the executive director of the onePulse Foundation, the nonprofit organization that had led efforts to build a memorial and a museum. Barbara Poma stepped down as executive director in 2022, then left the organization altogether last year amid conflict of interest criticism over her stated desire to sell instead of donate the Pulse property.

The original project unveiled in 2019 by the onePulse Foundation initially planned a museum and permanent memorial costing $45 million. However, this estimated price eventually rose to $100 million.

The scope of the project eventually expanded far beyond the nonprofit's fundraising capabilitiesaccording to an investigation by the Orlando Sentinel.

Deborah Bowie, who took over as head of the foundation in 2022, told the Sentinel that what she found when she arrived was a “house of cards waiting to collapse.”

“There’s a big disconnect between what the board thought and what I saw on the ground when I got here,” Bowie said. “The budgets I saw, I didn’t find any financial justification.”

Meanwhile, Pulse survivors and others have waited eight years for a permanent memorial.

“We all deserve closure, and it will never happen until this memorial is built,” Brett Rigas told the Sentinel.