For 22 years, the Pulse Nightclub sign has stood over and beside Orange Avenue as a welcome beacon to the LGBTQ+ community, but on Wednesday, its removal marked a new era of healing.
Crews raised the club’s sign high into the air before gently laying it on a truck bed for transport, ahead of a planned demolition of the building next week.
James Houchins, 28 of Casselberry, watched with mixed emotions as the sign came down.
“It's been a sign of hope. It's been a sign of community. It's been a sign of hurt,” Houchins said. “Seeing it removed is painful, but also progress.”
In 2016, a gunman arrived at the club armed with a semi-automatic rifle and killed 49 people and injured dozens more who had arrived at the club for a Latin-themed dance night.
Since then, the property has remained shuttered. The OnePULSE Foundation was established to create a permanent memorial. A temporary memorial was put in place at the location of the club. It was intended to be in place for two years. However, the foundation became mired in controversy, accused of misspending donations and taxpayer funds. The foundation was dissolved in 2023 along with plans for a permanent memorial and a museum.
The city of Orlando later purchased the Pulse Nightclub property with the promise that it would build a permanent memorial.
Last week, Orlando leaders unveiled design plans for 30% of the permanent memorial, along with a timeline of when the project would be completed, targeting the Fall of 2027.
The removal of the sign was the first step toward a physical change on the property, said Orlando District 4 Commissioner Patty Sheehan.
“For me, this is very, very emotional. I call these two tragedies,” she said. “There was the massacre that happened here 10 years ago, and then there was a fleecing of the community by the OnePULSE Foundation of millions of dollars… So for me, this is really, truly a clean slate.”
During the unveiling of the design plans, members of the public called the proposed memorial plan another “Orlando attraction.”
Houchins agrees.
“The plans look great. The plans look awesome. It looks like an attraction you would find on
I-Drive,” he said. “The city of Orlando wants more of a tourist attraction where the families, the survivors, the community, they should have had more of a say in what the memorial itself should look like.”
In 2024, the City of Orlando organized interviews with victims’ family members and survivors. It later created the Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee, which was made up of representatives of victims’ families, survivors, and community leaders. Using input from the community, the board mocked up a conceptual design, which was reflected in the proposed memorial crafted by the company contracted to finalize the design plans.
“I think we've been sensitive,” Sheehan said in reference to those unhappy with the design plans. “We try to incorporate as many points of view as we can, and came up with what I feel is a good product.”
Sheehan is hopeful that the memorial will bring more people together when it’s finished, so healing can truly begin.
“We can forget about OnePULSE and the nonsense and how they really ripped off this community,” she said. “All we can hope to do is give them some solace of knowing that we care, and that's what this memorial is about.”
