On August 26, 2013, SickKids celebrated their largest transformational gift with the naming of their new Toronto building dedicated to children’s health research and learning.

The naming of the new SickKids building

Peter Gilgan, the CEO and founder of Mattamy Homes, Canada’s largest new home builder, donated a transformational gift of $40 million to SickKids for the development of the building. In honour of the donation, the building has been named the “Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning,” and for short, the Gilgan Centre.

Gilgan’s donation is the largest single gift ever made to a children’s hospital in Canada, and according to a current press release, the Gilgan Centre is believed to be the tallest children health research building in the world at 21 storeys.

The original plan for the morning was to head to the roof so that Gilgan could watch the “P” get installed along the top of the building, but because of the thunderstorm, the celebration was held at street level. The rest of the building’s name is to be installed throughout this week and should be completed by Friday.

Left to right: Ted Garrard - President and CEO of SickKids Foundation, Janet Rossant - Chief of Research, Peter Gilgan - CEO and founder of Mattamy Homes, Jim Garner - Executive Vice President, Corporate Services, SickKids. 

About the Gilgan Centre

The grand opening for the Gilgan Centre is scheduled for September 17, 2013. Once it is open, it will be home to 2,000 SickKids staff, including scientists, trainees, and child health research and learning employees.

The Gilgan Centre is located at Bay and Elm in the heart of downtown Toronto. The stunning design by Diamond Schmitt Architects has already done wonders for the intersection.

From Diamond Schmitt website

From Diamond Schmitt website

There are six research “neighbourhoods” within the Gilgan Centre:

-Brain & Behaviour

-Organ Systems & Disease

-Patients, Populations, and Policy

-Genetic & Genomic Medicine

-Cancer & Stem Cell Biology

-Molecule, Cells & Therapies

From Diamond Schmitt website

About Mattamy Homes

Since 1978 Mattamy Homes has built over 60,000 homes throughout 150 communities across Canada and in the United States, and they are still going strong! Building all over the Greater Toronto Area, in Ottawa, and Calgary makes Mattamy Homes Canada’s largest home builder. In the United States, they build in Minneapolis, Charlotte, Phoenix, Jacksonville, and Orlando.

Over the past few decades, Mattamy Homes has developed a strong reputation for building high quality communities and offering superb customer service. A few of Mattamy’s current communities include St. John’s Forest in Aurora, Salisbury Square in Brampton, and Cornell Markham - plus many, many more.