Our History

Following the amalgamation of seven former school boards, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) became the owner of the largest real estate portfolio in the City of Toronto.

For many years, the TDSB debated the need to establish an independent agency to manage their property assets. Redevelopment, sales, management, and leasing of properties are specialized fields which are complex and time consuming. By creating a separate corporation to manage these capital assets, TDSB could focus on establishing a professional Board of Directors and recruiting staff with expertise in property and asset management, management of capital projects and the redevelopment and sale of commercial property.
By June 2007, the TDSB Trustees unanimously approved the development of a Shareholder’s Direction that would govern the relationship between the TDSB and its subsidiary corporation, the Toronto Lands Corporation (TLC). In September 2007, the TDSB approved the Shareholder’s Direction for the TLC which appointed the TLC as agent for the TDSB and provided it authority to manage an initial group of properties owned by the TDSB.
On April 25, 2008, the TLC was incorporated under the Business Corporations Act of Ontario.

In the first five years of operation, the corporation’s mandate was to improve the quality of education for students in TDSB schools by maximizing value to the TDSB through the management and, where determined by the TDSB to be appropriate, the redevelopment and/or sale of properties no longer required by the school board.

As the corporation and the TDSB environment evolved, so too did the Shareholder’s Direction to reflect changing priorities and shareholder needs. The current Shareholder’s Direction, revised in November 2018 created significant change to the responsibilities of TLC by directing the corporation take responsibility for the full TDSB real estate portfolio through the strategic management and optimal use of TDSB realty assets.

This means that TLC effectively manages all TDSB’s real estate and property interests and undertakes strategic opportunities for innovative redevelopment initiatives, community planning and partnerships, community hubs opportunities, schools in mixed-use developments, identifying  site redevelopment projects and reviewing proposals, school modernization strategies and other responsibilities as directed by the TDSB.