Article content

The Taggart family, whose name is emblazoned on construction projects across Eastern Ontario, has made a $10 million gift to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation’s fundraising campaign in support of a new, $2.8-billion Civic campus.

Article content

The Taggarts’ donation — made though the Taggart Parkes Foundation — is the second major gift to be announced as part of the hospital’s $500 million fundraising campaign.

That campaign launched in April with campaign chair Roger Greenberg unveiling a $25 million donation from shareholders of the Minto Group.

In an interview Wednesday, Jim Taggart, 80, chairman of the Taggart Group of Companies, said his family felt a responsibility to help replace the century-old Civic campus with a modern facility.

“We’ve been in Ottawa a long time and Ottawa has been good to us,” he explained. “The new hospital is something that will be good for the city: It will offer better health care and should create some construction activity in Ottawa as well.”

Article content

His daughter Julie Taggart, president of Taggart Realty Management, said she hopes the family’s gift will inspire other prominent families in the city to contribute to the hospital-building project.

“We think the hospital is a really important part of the community,” she said. “We believe in the hospital and the foundation, and that’s why we’re doing this. We know it’s going to be a state-of-the-art facility.”

The family has made significant community donations in the past, including $2 million to the YMCA’s capital campaign. The Argyle Avenue facility is known as the Taggart Family Y.

The hospital gift represents the biggest act of philanthropy in the family’s history.

“It’s all local: Our mandate is that we want to give back to the community,” said Julie Taggart.

Article content

The Taggarts boast an unusual family success story: They have built and expanded their eponymous firm through three generations. Some members of the fourth generation are now working as summer students in the Taggart Group of Companies.

The Taggart Group employs more than 700 people through five operating companies: Taggart Construction, Doran Contractors, Taggart Realty Management, Tartan Homes and Tamarack Homes.

Jim Taggart’s father, Harold, founded Taggart Construction in 1948 after working as a home builder in the city’s west end.

The son of a dentist, Harold Taggart was named after Harold Fisher, the former mayor of Ottawa, a family friend. Fisher was the city’s mayor when construction of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus was launched on Carling Avenue; the mayor was heavily criticized for building the $2 million hospital – it opened in 1924 – so far from the city centre.

Article content

Jim Taggart, the eldest of seven children born to Harold Taggart, and his wife, Muriel, said he was “led” into the construction business by his parents.

“Our parents directed us at to what career we should follow,” he said. “I was told I should become an engineer so I became an engineer.”

He became one of five Taggart family members from the second generation to join the firm. Half of the 24 members of the family’s third generation, including Julie Taggart, now work for the Taggart Group of Companies.

Their involvement is governed by a unique set of rules. Those who want to join management or ownership ranks have to obtain a university education and work outside the family firm for at least five years. The system is designed to ensure family members bring new skills and know-how to the business.

“There are a lot of pitfalls in running a family business: You see a lot of them go by the wayside in short order,” Jim Taggart said. “So we’re trying to keep it going as much as possible.”

Taggart last year received a lifetime achievement award from the Ottawa Board of Trade and Ottawa Business Journal.

Construction of the new Civic hospital is expected to take four years and conclude in 2028. The 2.5 million square-foot facility will feature 641 single-patient rooms and include a 12-storey patient care tower with a rooftop helipad.