Management at Club Q, an LGBTQIA nightclub in Colorado Springs, has unveiled artist’s renderings of what the redesigned and rebuilt venue will look like.
The official plans were unveiled Friday, just over five months since an attack that killed five clubgoers and injured 17 more.
Club Q owner Matt Haynes explained the redesign in a video posted to YouTube.
The rebuild will include a tribute to the victims of the November attack. A mural will display the names and photos of the five people killed — Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump.
Five, 12-foot pillars will surround a 40-foot flagpole and each will bear one of the victims’ names.
Haynes said multi-colored mosaics will also be included, representing members of the larger Colorado Springs and LGBTQIA communities that were impacted.
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Seventeen boulders will surround the pillars, in honor of the 17 people injured in the shooting.
“An integral part of Club Q rebuilding is a tribute — a tribute to those that we lost, a tribute to those that were injured, and also to an entire community that was impacted,” Haynes said in the video message.
He said the design plans are the result of five months of work toward reopening the club.
“It took about 10 days for us to really realize Club Q had to come back,” he said. “The most important thing that kept coming back [to us] was that we cannot let hate win.”
Internal gutting of the building will begin this month, and the club expects to reopen in the fall.
In February, a group of victims came together to question the management of donated funds that poured in during the months that followed the shooting.
Club management rebutted, saying funds sent to the GoFundMe page were being “managed internally and at the sole discretion of Club Q management."
The objectives of the fundraiser, according to management, were to:
- Ensure employees, as well as third-party entertainment contractors, "did not suffer a reduction of income due to the sudden closure of Club Q"
- Fund a "permanent standing tribute to honor those we lost, the survivors of the attack, and the thousands affected"
- "Rebuild and return Club Q back to the Colorado Springs LGBTQIA+"
Former employees and third-party entertainer contractors were set to begin receiving funds on Feb. 17. Those funds were to be distributed using an "equitable formula that is being used to fairly determine how much each individual will be receiving," management said.
A statement from management said the formula would be based on an individual's historic average of net monthly earnings and "is designed to help ensure there has not been a reduction of income [...] due to Club Q's abrupt closure."
Several other organizations were collecting money for Club Q victims, including the Colorado Healing Fund and National Compassion Fund, the latter of which had been endorsed by Club Q management.
The National Compassion Fund planned to begin distributing payments this month.
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