$10M in tourism taxes approved for Pulse memorial, museum

ORLANDO, Fla. — The onePULSE Foundation is moving forward with its plans to build a memorial and museum, honoring the 49 people killed in the 2016 massacre.

But a controversial part of the plan was noticeably missing Tuesday when county commissioners approved $10 million in tourism taxes for the project.

Last month, Channel 9 reported on nine surrounding properties the onePULSE Foundation was potentially looking to buy.

At least two of the property owners told Channel 9 they are not willing to sell, because their business is their livelihood.

Read: See what the permanent Pulse memorial, museum could look like

Project leaders said the memorial will definitely be here, but the location of the museum is up in the air.

Pulse owner, Barbara Poma, said last month that it starts with buying more property.

"Land acquisition is imperative to expand our footprint for parking staff, visitors and also tour buses and the museum site," she said.

While discussing the expansion at the September meeting, Poma showed a map of nine properties around Pulse, which included an Orlando fire station.

"This is a map of the potential parcels we are looking to acquire to create the footprint of the memorial and museum," she said.

During Tuesday's meeting, Poma gave the same presentation but left the land acquisition map out.

"Has it changed since then? I noticed it wasn't in the presentation today," Channel 9's Lauren Seabrook asked Poma on Tuesday.

"Oh, it's not that it's changed. That was just an idea for people. It was just to give an idea of what was around us," Poma said.

Poma said the museum could be anywhere in the vicinity of Pulse's current footprint.

"The memorial, we know where that needs to be," Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs said during Tuesday's meeting.

"Right," Poma said.

"And you have that property, the museum. There's opportunities for where that museum is, but you have to have the funding to look for the land," Jacobs said.

At the last meeting, they said they plan to have land acquired by January and a final design by next.

Cox Media Group