There were times when Patty Sheehan doubted a memorial to the victims would ever be built at the site of Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, where 49 people lost their lives in 2016 in what was then the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
Among the lowest points for the long-serving city commissioner was when she discovered that a gift shop was included in an ambitious original proposal for a museum to remember the survivors and those killed when a lone gunman claiming allegiance to Islamic State terrorists attacked the gay club.
“I was so upset I almost threw up,” said Sheehan about the “grandiose” plans of a group founded by Pulse owners Barbara and Rosario Poma that included selling merchandise and charging admission.
“Our goal was to do a memorial, not to do a museum. There was concern about how they were going to, you know, make it a tourist attraction.”
Ultimately, the group named the onePulse Foundation aimed too high and collapsed in 2023 after blowing through millions of dollars in donations, and the museum never came to fruition.
But to the deep frustration of Sheehan, the families of the victims and survivors she has comforted over the years, as well as Orlando’s LGBTQ+ communityalso did not do a permanent memorial.
Until now.
Earlier this month, after a tortuous process that required the City of Orlando to step in and purchase the site, and set up a new committee to get the process back on track, the final pieces began to fall into place for a memorial, reflection pool and healing garden on the footprint of the original nightclub building.
The hope is that ground-breaking can take place around the time of the 10th anniversary of the shooting next year. Most of the $12m in funding is in place, with the city committing $7.5m and asking the Orange county commission to contribute about another $5m, an appeal the county mayor, Jerry Demings, said he was looking upon favorably.
Meanwhile, a formal request for design and construction proposals was sent out at the beginning of March, with responses due by the end of May and a goal of finally having the project finished by the end of 2027.
For Sheehan, who became the first out gay elected official in central Florida in 2000, it cannot come soon enough. She was instrumental in raising funds for an interim memorial in the weeks and months following the tragedy, but never expected it or the nightclub building to still be standing almost nine years on.
“It was supposed to be there for just a couple of years, and it’s been there the whole time and is not ageing well,” she said.
“The majority of the folks, they just want to see something built. A lot of the survivors and kids I was very involved with from the beginning, they wanted to move on. I wouldn’t say they have a sense of relief, I think they’re probably going to get that when that building comes down. But I do think that they feel good about the work that they’ve done, even if there’s this kind of like holding your breath until it actually goes.”
Sheehan, who resigned from her involvement with onePulse early on when it became clear to her that they “weren’t getting their act together”, joined with Orlando’s mayor, Buddy Dyer, and other city officials in plotting a new way forward.
Last April, Dyer announced that the city had hired Dr Larry Schooler, a Texas-based consultant with experience in facilitating memorials following shootings in San Leandro, California, and Virginia Beach, to lead the process.
With recommendations from advisers including Sheehan, Dyer and others, Schooler quickly put together a new Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee composed of representatives of victims’ families, survivors, community leaders and those experienced in design and engineering, including landscape architects.
It met regularly and worked quickly, concluding its final meeting in February with a video presentation of its concept for the memorial that has now gone out for tender. The reflection pool will be located where the Pulse dance floor was; each of the 49 victims will be commemorated on columns along an elliptical walkway; and survivors have their own tribute wall with seating area and landscaping.
“The committee was chosen of community people, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t the mayor, it wasn’t political people, it was members of the community that worked together to come up with what they wanted to see in terms of a memorial,” Sheehan said.
“I think they did a really good job. They were very respectful of one another, and it was a difficult process, because I felt it was very important personally to take that building down. I’ve always felt that building is a big gaping wound on this community.
“We’re going to do this the right way. There are still some families that are not happy with us, I don’t think they’re ever going to be happy. When you’re dealing with grief some people get stuck in anger, and that’s OK. That’s how they’re coping, that’s how they’re dealing with things.”
Overall, Sheehan hopes, the vast majority of the Pulse community can come together to recognize, appreciate and even celebrate what will be to many a long-overdue achievement.
OnePulse, she said, promised the earth but delivered nothing, soaked up cash, then folded when the cost of its planned museum got too high. It handed over land it had purchased to build it to the county, and returned to the state $400,000 in grant money that the Democratic state congresswoman Anna Eskamani, who is running to succeed Dyer as Orlando mayor, wants allocated to the new memorial project.
The foundation, in a letter to county officials, blamed Covid-19 for the challenges it faced, while the Orlando Sentinel declared the group had simply broken the city’s heart.
Sheehan said the inauguration of the memorial would be a fitting point for her to retire from local politics after more than a quarter-century of service, and over a decade after the tragedy that changed her city forever.
“It was a universal loss. Every major monument in the world was lit up in rainbow to honor us, and that was something that was really beautiful,” she said.
“I’ve always felt that we are a loving, decent, good-hearted group of people. I’m hoping that we can finally get this done and resolved, and have a reflective, good place where everyone can come.”
