Orlando seeks $5 million from county for Pulse memorial; some commissioners are hesitant

Silas Morgan and Stephen Hudak, Orlando Sentinel on Mar 12, 2025

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ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer is seeking $5 million from Orange County to help build a long-sought permanent memorial to the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre, but his request is facing early resistance, in a sign of lingering bitterness over the failure of earlier memorial plans.

In a Monday memorandum to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, Dyer asked for the funds to help design and build the memorial — which is estimated to cost $12 million and for which the city has already pledged more than half of that estimate. Orlando took the helm of the memorial effort in late 2023 amid the messy collapse of the private onePulse foundation.

“Since the tragedy, the city and county have continuously partnered to support the victims’ families and survivors and helped build community resilience,” Dyer said in the memo, as he sought to evoke the memories of the 49 individuals killed in the horrific shooting. “We hope that the County will continue that spirit of partnership as we as we work to realize an overdue memorial that properly honors the 49.”

A spokesperson for Demings told the Orlando Sentinel Wednesday that while the mayor supports the request, final approval must come from the Orange County Commission during the county’s annual budget process in the summer. But other county leaders were more circumspect.

While believing a memorial is overdue, Orange County Commissioner Mayra Uribe, whose district includes the Pulse site, told the Sentinel she could not yet pledge taxpayer dollars to the project.

“We need more information,” she said. “We need to know where everything ended with the onePulse funding. We’ve never been told. Was there any money left over and where is that money?”

The onePulse Foundation raised about $20 million over its seven-year lifespan, falling far short of the ambition $100 million memorial and museum plan it had concocted.

Uribe said the county should be involved in the whole process and not just financially. Commissioner Kelly Semrad raised similar concerns.

“I think the county, our whole community, wants to contribute to recognizing and memorializing the loss, making sure that this never happens again,” Semrad said. “But I think there are a lot of reservations in terms of what happened to the original amount of money that came into the foundation and where did it go, and making sure that we’re accountable, transparent, and that future investment goes where it needs to.”

The Orlando City Council last month endorsed a design for a memorial unanimously approved by the Pulse Memorial Advisory Committee, which included relatives of the 49 people who died in the massacre and some members who had visited the club that horrible night in June 2016. An early estimate pegged the cost at $12 million to design and construct, of which the city would contribute $7.5 million, but no detailed design or construction pan has yet been prepared.

Dyer mentioned in the memorandum how the failed prior efforts to build a memorial, including the efforts of onePulse, will make it harder for Orlando to once again raise funds from private sources — difficulties which apparently extend to public sources as well.

“Unfortunately, many in our local community have given previously through either the OneOrlando Fund, which was established to go directly to the victims’ families and survivors, or the OnePulse Foundation without any return of a memorial, which makes it more challenging for the city to raise significant private funding for the memorial,” he wrote.

Orlando issued a request for contractors to submit their proposals for the memorial on March 3. Dyer aims to complete the memorial by the second half of 2027, before he leaves office.

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