County Commission approves $1M grant for 1-October memorial project

Las Vegas, NV (KXNT) - The Clark County Commission voted on Tuesday to allocate a $1 million grant to the Vegas Strong Fund to assist with administrative and design services related to development of the community’s 1 October Memorial project to remember the events of the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1, 2017.

The grant will help convert the concept of the “Forever One Memorial” created by JCJ Architecture and approved by the County Commission in September 2023 into a design that includes a budget and supporting fundraising campaign to build the memorial.

The JCJ concept, which includes a tower of light, 58 vertical candles representing the victims who died in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, and a community plaza was selected by the 1 October Memorial Committee following a three-year effort to gather extensive input from family members of victims, survivors and the public to recommend a design concept for a permanent memorial.

The memorial will be built on two acres in the northeast corner of the festival site off Reno Avenue and Giles Street. MGM Resorts International offered to donate the acreage after a clear majority of respondents in a 1 October Memorial Committee survey indicated a preference for a memorial to be built on the festival site.

In April, the County Commission designated the Vegas Strong Fund as the non-profit organization responsible for fundraising, designing and constructing the 1 October MemorialAs part of that action, a total of $143,986 in donations collected by the County for the memorial also were transferred to the Vegas Strong Fund to develop the project.