The Orange County Board of Commissioners has chosen to sell the property that was once planned to house a proposed LGBTQ History Museum run by the now-defunct OnePulse Foundation.
The 1.75-acre property, located at 438 W. Kaley Street [GMap], was purchased by the dissolved non-profit for $3.5 million in 2019 using Tourist Development Tax dollars. When OnePulse closed up shop in 2023, they couldn’t repay the grant dollars and instead offered up the property on their way out. Not like they had much of a choice.
Orange County government had previously agreed to award the foundation $10 million in Tourist Development Taxes in 2018 to help purchase the land and plan the museum, which was expected to cost roughly $15 million to build at the time. Only $6.5 million had been awarded to OnePulse for the purchase of the property and to cover design costs for the museum, with the remaining funds still being held in TDT accounts, according to a post by Ryan Lynch for Orlando Business Journal.
The County has now decided that it will be selling the property for its appraised value of $4.05 million. All proceeds of the sale will be returned to the county’s TDT funds.
