The Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee of Orlando, Florida, voted on Tuesday on a final design for the permanent memorial commemorating the LGBTQ+ nightclub where a deadly June 12, 2016, shooting killed 49 people and wounded 53 others. The city’s mayor hopes the memorial will be built by 2027.

The final design will occupy the footprint of the original nightclub. The memorial will feature an elliptical walkway with 49 canopied rainbow-colored glass panels honoring the victims, a private indoor gathering area and exhibition space where loved ones can leave personal mementos and an outdoor garden with a tree honoring the survivors.

Related

MAGA vandal destroyed a rainbow sidewalk. Now he’s paying a big price.
His own friends ratted him out to police and his truck was registered to his mommy and daddy.

It will also feature flags reflecting the ethnic identities of the victims as well as a reflection pool located over the original building’s dance floor. The bottom of the pool will bear an image of a rainbow-colored heart with the electrocardiogram wave of a pulse running through it.

Stay connected to your community

Connect with the issues and events that impact your community at home and beyond by subscribing to our newsletter.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

The 18-person committee conversed for seven months about how the memorial could strike the right balance between memory and healing. The committee considered input from community members, victims’ families, and survivors, Orlando Weekly reported.

But the committee remained undecided on whether to list the victims’ names on a memorial wall alongside pairs of the victims’ shoes (alongside the phrase “For those who just wanted to dance”) or to list the victims’ names on a single wall or columns throughout the memorial.

Also undecided is how to incorporate the club’s “breach wall” where police broke through to rescue survivors. While some argued that the wall could traumatize survivors with a reminder of the night’s horrors, at least one survivor disagreed.

“Being a survivor and being able to make it out of the building, it’s important to me that part of that building stays there,” Brett Rigas told WESH-TV. “Through that wall came hope…. So moving that wall or putting it any place … [is] obscene to me.”

The committee will meet with the Orlando City Council on February 24 to help finalize the aforementioned details. The city hopes to solicit bids from construction contractors starting in March and choose a winner in July.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said he hopes the memorial will be completed by late summer or early fall 2027 when his mayoral term ends, WOFL reported.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.