The Hospital for Sick Children received a $100 million gift on Monday in an act that is being called the largest single donation ever made to the hospital.

The money was donated by Peter Gilgan, owner of Mattamy Homes, who made the announcement Monday morning in front of hundreds of patients and staff.

“Who deserves it more than our little people,” he said. “I’ve seen what extraordinary things this hospital can do.”

The unprecedented gift will support the Sick Kids VS Limits campaign. The $1.3 billion campaign will redevelop the Sick Kids campus, including the construction of a new patient care tower on University Avenue. The tower will be named the Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care tower.

Gilgan refered to the hospital, which was built in 1949, as a “race car running on flat tires.” He adds, “I’m giving the hospital a new set of tires.”

This is not Gilgan’s first donation to Sick Kids.

In 2012, the Peter Gilgan Foundation gave $40 million to support the construction of the Sick Kids Centre for Research and Learning.

“Generosity of this magnitude is transformative,” said Ted Garrard, CEO of the Sick Kids Foundation. “Peter Gilgan’s historic gift will help change the future of children’s health “

The Peter Gilgan Family Patient Care Tower will house critical care and inpatient units. It will reflect the very latest in medical design: private one-family rooms, dedicated mental-health beds, a state-of-the-art blood and marrow/cellular transplant therapy unit, specialty operating theatres, advanced diagnostic imaging facilities, and a vastly expanded emergency department.

Construction is expected to begin in October 2019. The Sick Kids VS Limits fundraising campaign is the largest in Canadian health care history.