The University of Sydney will receive a $35 million donation to build part of a new health precinct, the largest donation in the university's history.
The donation from Susan and Isaac Wakil, owners of many of Sydney's derelict buildings in Pyrmont and the CBD, will allow the university to bring nursing, midwifery, medicine, pharmacy and dentistry all together under the one roof.
In a rare comment to the media, Mr Wakil said they were pleased to be able to make the project a reality.
"We were inspired by the radical and innovative approach the University of Sydney is taking to address immediate and future healthcare challenges," he said in a statement.
The Wakils began selling off their vast property portfolio in 2014 to raise money for their charitable foundation. They made their fortune in the garment trade before investing in property in the 1970s.
The pair, who emigrated from the former Soviet Union and Iraq, are now aged in their 80s. They have no children and their only known relative is a nephew.
Over the past two years they have raised at least $200 million from properties scattered around the CBD, with many of them left unused since the 1970s.
Among their former assets are a string of properties through Surry Hills, including the Griffiths Tea Warehouse in Wentworth Avenue and the nearby Key College building. They also owned a warehouse close to the Star casino that sold for more than $90 million last year.
In Harris Street, Pyrmont, the pair own the Terminus Hotel, which has stood empty for 30 years. The hotel, with its vine-covered vintage beer ads and balconies, is now for sale with an asking price of $5 million.
The decaying halls of the CBD are a far cry from the Wakil's latest venture. The $35 million university facility will see state-of-the-art clinical simulation programs and a multi-service clinic combined with a 350-seat lecture theatre and a rehabilitation gym.
It is the second multimillion-dollar donation to the university from the Wakil foundation in the past 12 months. The couple gave $10.8 million to the Sydney Nursing School last May to establish 12 annual nursing scholarships, bringing their total donations to nearly $46 million in a year.
For the University of Sydney, the donation marks a record annual haul after it received $33.7 million in June from Barry and Joy Lambert for research into medical cannabis.
Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson said there had been a dramatic change in the dependence of universities on philanthropy in a climate of public funding uncertainty.
The federal government's proposed cuts to the Commonwealth grant scheme could see universities lose up to $1.3 billion in research funding over the next decade, according to a report released by the Parliamentary Budget Office on Wednesday.
"Every university is looking at it now," said Ms Hutchinson. "This is a very dramatic change, and absolutely critical from a research and scholarships funding perspective. That is where we are really under pressure.
"In the past we were lucky if we got $10-20 million a year, now we are looking at more than $80 million a year in donations," she said.
With Anne Davies
