Demolition of Pulse, the LGBTQ+-friendly nightclub in Florida where 49 people were killed in 2016, began on Wednesday, bringing a symbolic end to an almost decade-long wrangle over the future of the building that some residents and its former owners wanted to be preserved as a memorial for the victims.
A new $12m permanent memorial will be built on the site, with final plans expected to be revealed in May, and its completion scheduled for fall 2027.
The design will include a reflection pool and private spaces to honor those killed, while finer details, including landscaping and other features, will be finalized in consultation with victims’ families. The Pulse shooting was, at the time, the nation’s deadliest mass shooting.
“This was a sacred site to those who loved the 49 and anybody else that had visited Pulse,” Buddy Dyer, Orlando’s mayor, said at a press conference on Tuesday ahead of the demolition, reported by Fox35 News.
Dyer said the club was welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community and a diverse range of other patrons, and that he hoped the memorial would be a site of healing for a city that would never forget those who were killed.
He also recalled the night of 12 June 2016, when the gunman, Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, opened fire with an assault-style rifle and moved through the nightclub shooting at will before eventually taking his own life.
“I remember that very vividly, getting the calls shortly after 2 o’clock and then being on site through the remainder of the morning,” Dyer said. “Just the sadness of it all. Fourty-nine lives extinguished that night for no reason at all.”
Years of delays plagued original plans to preserve the site in some form and commemorate the victims. One proposal, by a group founded by Pulse owners Barbara and Rosario Poma, included selling merchandise and charging admission.
“Our goal was to do a memorial, not to do a museum,” Orlando city commissioner, Patty Sheehan, told the Guardian last year. “There was concern about how they were going to, you know, make it a tourist attraction.”
That group, the onePulse Foundation, collapsed in 2023 after squandering millions of dollars in donations.
In October 2023, the city of Orlando bought the site, setting in motion a lengthy process of consultation, planning and tendering that led to Wednesday’s demolition and a significant step toward the end of what will have been an 11-year saga, assuming construction proceeds on schedule.
Pulse survivor Brandon Wolf, who lost friends in the shooting, told the Fox affiliate that the demolition of the remains of the club, which commenced shortly before dawn on Wednesday, watched by a handful of curious locals, helped lift a lingering cloud over the city.
“I’m ready to move forward,” he said. “I’m ready to see a beautiful reverent memorial be in that space where people can come, where they can reflect, where they can be close to their loved ones. I know that’s the space I feel close with the best friends who came to the club with me that night and did not get to come home.”
