Buddy Dyer wants Orlando to purchase Pulse nightclub shooting site

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said he wants to restart the conversation for the city to buy the Pulse nightclub site.

“Creating a memorial to the victims of the Pulse tragedy has been a challenging endeavor, with the current plan for the memorial to be built somewhere besides the actual Pulse site,” Dyer said in a statement to media.

A proposed land purchase will come before the Orlando City Council on Monday. An agenda item says the city plans to offer a purchase price of $2 million, slightly above its appraised value of $1.965 million.

“We recently had the opportunity to meet with and listen to some of the family members of the victims, as well as survivors,” Dyer added. “They expressed their strong desire for a lasting memorial to be located on the Pulse site. The hurt and pain they shared — now more than seven years since the tragedy — only solidified our belief that the 49 angels deserve a permanent memorial on the Pulse site.”

The gay nightclub was the site of a mass shooting in 2019 where a shooter killed 49 people before dying in a standoff with police.

City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, whose district includes the nightclub, feels confident the Council will pass the item. “I’m confident it will happen,” she said. But she noted the city will need the sellers to sign off on the deal.

Pulse owner Barbara Poma entered into talks before to sell the site. A plan fell apart months after the shooting, when the owner pulled out of negotiations unhappy with the city offer.

In recent months, the relationship between Poma and the onePulse Foundation, which planned a museum on the site, devolved.

Dyer now wants the city to take over the site and plan a modest memorial, not a full-scale museum.

“In the interest of solving challenges in a way that brings our community together in love, acceptance and partnership, which is the enduring legacy of Pulse, we have decided to purchase the land from its current owners. We believe that this is the best and most appropriate way to expedite the creation of a proper memorial for the Pulse tragedy,” he said.

“Given that the City has not been a part of this process, our plan is to first acquire the land, and then determine the appropriate next steps. We are committed to taking a thoughtful, collaborative approach to understand the history of the effort to create a memorial up until this point, and then working with the victims’ families and survivors to ensure there is a memorial at the Pulse site that honors the victims, those impacted by the tragedy and pays tribute to the resiliency of Orlando.”