Comcast’s Brian Roberts and family donate $125 million to CHOP, the hospital’s largest gift ever

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and his wife Aileen are giving Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia $125 million and will get their name on the nonprofit’s new $2.59 billion patient tower expected to open in late 2028, CHOP said Thursday.

The gift is the largest in CHOP’s 170-year history. The new inpatient building, with 200 beds in private rooms and the capacity to add 300 more, plus an existing inpatient building next door, will form a complex known as Roberts Children’s Health.

“We’re honored and humbled to help ensure CHOP remains a magnet for the greatest medical talent, a refuge for those facing the most complex cases, an incubator for breakthrough treatments, a beacon of hope, and the pride of Philadelphia for decades to come,” the couple said in a news release.

The donation is Brian and Aileen Roberts’ biggest ever and continues a history of giving by the Roberts family at CHOP and at other Philadelphia institutions.

The expansion will give CHOP more than 700 private rooms in University City. The campus currently has 607 licensed beds, some of which will be converted from double rooms into private rooms. CHOP will have more than 30 procedure and imaging rooms for cardiology, neurology, and other specialties at the site.

“Roberts Children’s Health will greatly enhance the hospital experience for our patients and their families, equip our staff with the latest innovations, and revolutionize how we provide care, all while continuing our long legacy of breakthroughs,” CHOP CEO Madeline Bell said in a statement.

The $125 million donation continues a history of giving by the Roberts family at CHOP. The $275 million Roberts Center for Pediatric Research opened in 2017 with the help of a $25 million gift from the family. That gift also helped pay for the Roberts Collaborative for Genetics and Individualized Medicine.

The Roberts family’s ties to CHOP span three generations, starting with Brian Robert’s uncle, Robert Fleisher. He was on CHOP’s board and got Comcast founder Ralph Roberts and his wife Suzanne Fleisher Roberts involved in supporting CHOP. Aileen Roberts is a former CHOP board member. A member of the third generation, Sarah Hall, is on the CHOP Foundation Board of Advisors.

The Roberts family has also donated to Penn Medicine, which has clinical and academic ties to CHOP though they are separate nonprofits.

In 2006, Brian Roberts and his father (whose 105th birthday would have been Thursday), announced a $15 million gift to Penn Medicine in 2006 for proton therapy center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Brian Roberts’ sister, Catherine Clifton, and her husband, Anthony, donated $120 million to Penn last month for the renaming of Penn’s new patient pavilion. It’s now called the Clifton Center for Medical Breakthroughs.

CHOP’s new 1.3 million-square-foot patient tower is going up on the site of the Wood Center, which opened in 1989 as CHOP’s first outpatient facility. The steel frame of the new building is one-third completed, CHOP said.

The cost of Roberts Children’s Health adds to the billions CHOP has poured into construction in University City and at a site across the Schuylkill River next to the South Street Bridge.

CHOP opened the Colket Center for Translational Research in 2010 ($480 million), the Buerger Center for Advanced Pediatric Care in 2015 ($645 million), and The Hub for Clinical Collaboration in 2022 ($492 million).

On the Center City side of the river, CHOP is building a 17-story tower that will be named the Morgan Center for Research and Innovation for $480 million. A $50 million gift from real estate investor Mitchell L. Morgan and his family is helping to pay for that center going up next to the Roberts Center for Pediatric Research.

More than five years ago, CHOP started working its plan for the new patient tower, saying at the time the existing hospital was out of room. CHOP said the system would pay for the new building without borrowing money, instead relying on financial reserves, profits, and philanthropy.

Since then construction costs have increased substantially and the “conceptual” price tag increased from $1.9 billion to nearly $2.6 billion, according to municipal bond offerings last fall that raised $750 million toward the construction of the Morgan and Roberts buildings.

Overall higher operating costs in health care have squeezed CHOP’s profitability. From fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2024, CHOP’s operating profit margin averaged 2.2%. In the three years before the pandemic, the average was 7.4%.

Now CHOP faces potential cuts to Medicaid and federal research funding from the administration of President Donald Trump.

Editor’s note: This story has bee updated to correct the age Ralph Roberts would have been Thursday.