More than 10 years after a shooter killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub, the Orlando City Council unanimously voted Monday to move forward with construction on a memorial.
Under a construction agreement with Winter Park's Gomez Construction, the project is on a concrete construction schedule. Work will begin at the site of the former nightclub on South Orange Avenue on Nov. 25 and wrap up by the end of next year.
The Pulse massacre was at the time the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. The nonprofit OnePULSE Foundation led fundraising efforts but was plagued by accusations of misusing community and public money.
After the foundation dissolved in 2023, the city bought the land.
"This is the last step in the healing and the continuum of this process — to make sure that we get this built," City Commissioner Patty Sheehan said.
Under a $12.6 million agreement, Winter Park's Gomez Construction will turn the now-razed site into a 0.9-acre space for the community to honor the victims and reflect on its legacy.
Buddy Dyer has been Orlando's mayor for more than two decades. He won't be seeking reelection next fall, and he's made the memorial a personal priority before he leaves office.
"Commissioner Sheehan and I will term out in January, and we're going to make sure that that memorial is finished before we do," Dyer said.
According to planning documents, construction will run through the end of next year. That completion date hasn't changed, though project planners told previously said they expected to begin work in September.
Orange County, the state and numerous charitable organizations are helping to finance the project, in addition to the $7.5 million the city has budgeted for the work.
The Legislature last year awarded more than $394,000 in grant funding. And the Orange County Commission committed $5 million to support the memorial in June 2025.
The Orlando City Council picked Gomez Construction to complete work on the project, scoring it the highest out of three firms that submitted bids to work on the project.
Cost-saving changes
The bid package on Monday's agenda included 19 changes to the project from earlier designs to stay within the $12.6 million budget, according to a spokesman from Gomez Construction.
For example, "the tile mosaic at the curved wall of the Visitors Center is deleted from the project and will now be just stucco," the Oct. 5 bid notes explain, and "the granite on the two survivor walls will now be tile."
The revisions also entirely get rid of benches outside of the visitors pavilion and swap copper plumbing for PVC. And, also to save on costs, "the plant sizes are reduced by an approximate 50%."
The project is also over budget for lighting and electrical work. Douglas Richards, a spokesman for the city, elaborated on the project cost in a statement on Monday.
"At every pre-construction design milestone, Gomez provided the city with a cost estimate, as well as ideas to save money and get back to the desired budget point, if applicable," Richards wrote. "Many of the cost savings centered on changing suppliers. For example, the supplier for pavers was changed from an out of state company to a local supplier, resulting in savings due to reduced shipping/delivery costs."
Gomez Operations Manager Stephen Corrow attributed the need for cost-cutting measures to a "volatile" construction market with substantial price fluctuations. Kristi Fries, the city public works project manager, said Gomez made a "Herculean" effort to keep the project within budget.
According to the schedule attached to Monday's meeting agenda, construction work on site will begin on Nov. 25, starting with site grading and a tree removal.
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