City Council voted 7-0 for a $12.6 million deal with Gomez Construction to build the Pulse Memorial. Work starts this fall, with completion by the end of 2027.

The permanent Pulse Memorial has its builder. The Orlando City Council approved a $12,624,837 construction agreement with Gomez Construction Company on Oct. 12.

The vote moves the project from design into construction. The city expects work to begin this fall and the memorial to be finished by the end of 2027.

The memorial will stand on the site of the Pulse nightclub on South Orange Avenue, where 49 people were killed on June 12, 2016.

What the council approved

The contract was item 3.b.9 on the council’s consent agenda. The minutes of the Oct. 12 meeting record that the council voted to:

  • accept donations of more than $2 million for the memorial
  • approve the construction agreement with Gomez Construction Company
  • let the city’s chief procurement officer sign it, for $12,624,837 in future construction costs, subject to review by the City Attorney’s Office

Commissioner Tom Keen moved the consent agenda and Commissioner Patty Sheehan seconded it. It passed 7-0, the minutes show.

The $12,624,837 figure is a guaranteed maximum price, the city said in a release ahead of the vote. The Oct. 12 agenda lists it as a design-build agreement under the city’s RFP25-0271 solicitation.

Gomez Construction has been working on the design with the architects Borrelli + Partners. The city began taking down the Pulse building on March 18 to clear the site. It said artifacts from inside had already been removed and preserved.

$1.75 million from six donors

The city announced $1.75 million in new support from six community partners in the same release. They are:

  • the DeVos Family Foundation
  • Dr. Phillips Charities
  • Orlando Health
  • Universal Destinations & Experiences
  • the Wilf Family Foundations
  • Walt Disney World Resort

The city said the gifts build on money from Orange County and the state of Florida.

“These commitments represent more than financial support for the Pulse Memorial,” Mayor Buddy Dyer said in the release. “They reflect the extraordinary spirit of collaboration that emerged in Orlando following June 12, 2016.”

Universal Orlando Resort noted that six of its team members were among the 49 killed. “They belonged here and are remembered here,” Karen Irwin, the resort’s president and chief operating officer, said in the release.

A line from Lin-Manuel Miranda on the Survivor Wall

The city also made public one detail of the design. A passage of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Sonnet to Orlando” will be part of the Survivor Wall, in the memorial’s Survivor Common Area.

Miranda read the sonnet at the 2016 Tony Awards, hours after the shooting, when he accepted the award for best original score for “Hamilton.” It includes the words “love is love is love is love.”

The design grew out of a concept drawn up by the Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee, the city said. The 18-member committee included Pulse families and survivors, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other Orlando residents. It met for seven months in late 2024 and early 2025.

What it means for you

  • The site will be a construction zone once work starts this fall. The city has not yet announced a groundbreaking date or any lane or sidewalk closures on South Orange Avenue. We will add them to our road closures page when it does.
  • Updates on the design and the building work are posted at pulseorlando.org, the site the city points readers to.
  • Completion is expected by the end of 2027, the city said.