Nearly 10 years after the shooting, the City of Orlando is moving forward with the design of a permanent memorial to honor the 49 people who were killed at the Pulse Nightclub mass shooting.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Orlando held a public meeting to present 30% of the design plan for the upcoming memorial \u2013 a key milestone in the process, according to the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we wanted to provide was an opportunity to view a new day and a new beginning for our city and for ourselves,\u201d said Dan Michael Trbovich, senior architect with Borrelli + Partners and lead architect on the project.<\/p>\n
In 2016, a gunman opened fire at the Pulse Nightclub during a Latin-themed night. He killed 49 people and injured 53 others. The gunman was also killed by law enforcement.<\/p>\n
In December 2025, the city began moving artifacts, such as chandeliers and the bar top, from the nightclub on the corner of Orange Avenue and Kaley Street ahead of a planned demolition of the building.<\/p>\n
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The memorial is expected to begin construction on September 26th.<\/p>\n
Borrelli + Partners \/ City of Orlando<\/p>\n
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The memorial is expected to begin construction on September 26th.<\/p>\n
Borrelli + Partners \/ City of Orlando<\/p>\n
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The memorial is expected to begin construction on September 26th.<\/p>\n
Borrelli + Partners \/ City of Orlando<\/p>\n
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The memorial is expected to begin construction on September 26th.<\/p>\n
Borrelli + Partners \/ City of Orlando<\/p>\n
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The memorial is expected to begin construction on September 26th.<\/p>\n
Borrelli + Partners \/ City of Orlando<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s design presentation showed \u201cMemorial Park,\u201d which will be built where the club stood. The plans include a reflection pool, a new stylized Pulse tower, a healing garden, a fountain wall, a survivor\u2019s wall honoring those who were injured, and a row of columns \u2013 all with a tribute to the 49 on each column face.<\/p>\n
The \u201cAngel Ellipse\u201d features a rainbow color gradient that changes throughout the entire stretch of that ellipse, Trbovich said.<\/p>\n
The design comes after a long and contentious history over the ownership of the property and what to do with the space, and how to memorialize the victims.<\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s meeting, not everyone was pleased with the proposed plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows zero empathy and consideration for the survivors and victims. You’re perverting their traumas and deaths for a tacky, performative rainbow spectacle,\u201d said Christine Hanavan, a Winter Springs resident who is close with LBGTQ+ community and spoke during a public comment section of the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 49 who were murdered deserve a respectful, dignified, and peaceful memorial that their families control, not the city of Orlando. The Pulse Memorial shouldn’t be an over-designed, attention-grabbing tourist destination and vanity project,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The next steps of the project come next week, when Gomez Construction Co. will remove the featured Pulse sign that hangs over Orange Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe week after that, the building will be removed. It’ll take a week or two, maybe a little more, to remove the materials from the site,\u201d said Stephen Corrow, a Gomez senior project manager.<\/p>\n
Later in May, the design team will submit its plans for 60% of the memorial. Another public meeting will be held following the submission. Construction is estimated to begin on September 26, Corrow said.<\/p>\n
Nancy Rosado, an Orlando resident who worked with Pulse survivors and family members, was pleased with the plans, but more so that a plan is finally being put into action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been unfinished business for 10 years, and this is finally moving that forward and helping people to move forward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 10 years after the shooting, the City of Orlando is moving forward with the design of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140],"class_list":{"0":"post-180733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-orlando","9":"tag-orlando-headlines","10":"tag-orlando-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}