Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny Knight pledged $1.1 billion to Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, funding what Providence calls Oregon's first dedicated women's health hospital on the Cedar Mill campus.

Providence announced the gift Tuesday, Sept. 15. The pledge, spread over 10 years with the first distribution in 2026, will pay for a new hospital tower anchored by an updated labor and delivery unit, a neonatal intensive care unit with private family rooms, and specialized cardiac, menopause and gynecology care.

For Bethany and Cedar Mill families, St. Vincent is the closest full-service hospital. It delivers more babies each year than any other hospital in Oregon, according to Providence. The existing maternity unit and NICU were built in the 1990s.

The new NICU will have private rooms. It replaces an older layout that uses a single shared room with a row of specialized incubators called isolettes.

St. Vincent is planning roughly 80 to 100 beds in the new building, though Dr. Ray Moreno, chief executive of Providence St. Vincent, told The Oregonian the final number and mix of services have not been decided. Providence officials said it was too early to say when construction might begin or when the facility could open.

"That was just a dream until this incredible transformative gift," Moreno told OPB, describing how hospital leaders had long envisioned a dedicated women's hospital but lacked the funding.

The new tower is expected to be "deeply integrated" into the existing St. Vincent campus, according to the Hillsboro News-Times, giving patients coordinated access to gynecology, pregnancy care, labor and delivery, menopause treatment and cardiovascular services in one location.

Part of the $1.1 billion will also support the Providence Heart Institute, headquartered on the same campus. The institute treats about 63,000 patients across the Pacific Northwest each year, up from 40,000 a decade ago. Dr. Dan Oseran, the institute's executive medical director, told OPB the pledge will allow Providence to recruit specialists, invest in clinical trials and expand diagnostic cardiac imaging.

The gift is the Knight family's second major contribution to St. Vincent in 2026. In February, Providence announced a $75 million Knight gift for cardiac care. Over the past decade, the Knights contributed $200 million to the Heart Institute, helping establish a heart transplantation program. Providence officials described the combined gifts as what they believe is the largest philanthropic contribution to a healthcare institution in history.

Women make up 60% of Providence's patients, according to the health system. While Oregon's birthrate has fallen, a higher percentage of pregnancies now involve complex health conditions, OPB reported.

Even with the expansion, St. Vincent's NICU will not offer the highest level of newborn care. Babies who need the most specialized services will still be transferred to OHSU or Legacy Randall Children's Hospital, The Oregonian reported.

No construction timeline, land-use filings or public comment dates have been announced for the project.