Tillsonburg, Ontario
Tillsonburg's largest nameable owner is its own town hall, and the asset is a field: the Van Norman Innovation Park is a 140-acre municipal master plan whose first phase sold out in under a year and whose second phase is priced at $250,000 an acre. The town also owns a regional airport that sits seven kilometres outside its own boundary. What it has not got is a private landlord of any scale - the province's return records no office-building assessment class in Tillsonburg at all, and no apartment units were completed in 2025.
6 buildings · 4 with an owner established · 12 sources · 6 tier A · prepared 2026-10-03
Ontario's land registry is public but never free. ServiceOntario holds the official record of ownership for every parcel in the province and sells it one parcel at a time through OnLand: a copy of a parcel register, including the first page, costs $37.10 ($9.70 statutory + $24.25 ELRSA + $3.15 HST) under the Land Registry Services Branch fee bulletin effective 2 November 2026, with $2.56 for each additional page and $13.15 for an adjacent PIN in Teraview. There is no bulk ownership extract, no open assessment roll - MPAC's per-property values sit behind AboutMyProperty, propertyline and Municipal Connect logins - and no price-paid dataset, so a sale price exists only on a registered transfer. What is open in a small Ontario town is everything around title: the municipality's own council record, and the province's Financial Information Return, which publishes the assessed value of every property class in every municipality.
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The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Van Norman Innovation Park Highway 3 corridor, Tillsonburg 140-acre master plan |
Land | Town of Tillsonburg The town's own page: a 140-acre master plan on the Highway 3 corridor, Phase 1 'sold out in under 1 year', Phase 2A releasing 15 acres in flexible 5-10 acre parcels, development-ready in 2025 and fully serviced including ultra-high-speed fibre, at $250,000 an acre with no Tillsonburg development charges, two hours from the GTA and within reach of three United States border crossings. A further 125 acres as Phase 2B is planned for future release and can be waitlisted. What the town paid to assemble the land is not published and the staff reports are behind a Cloudflare block. |
Government | —A |
| Tillsonburg Regional Airport (CYTB) 244411 Airport Road |
Civic | Town of Tillsonburg A municipal asset that is not in the municipality. The town's own airport page states it is 'located on Highway 19 (Plank Road) at Airport Road... 16 kilometres south of Highway 401 and 7 kilometres north of the Town of Tillsonburg at 244411 Airport Rd', and describes it as Oxford County's only paved runway, staffed 8:30 to 4:30 with 24/7 card-lock fuel. It is listed under the town's Business and Development department with a town-employed airport manager. Because it lies outside the town boundary it contributes nothing to Tillsonburg's own assessment base. |
Government | —A |
| Annandale National Historic Site and Museum 30 Tillson Avenue |
Institutional | Town of Tillsonburg The town's own page: an 1880s mansion built by the town's first mayor, now a national historic site and community museum holding more than 18,000 artifacts, with published admission rates ($8.25 adult, $16.50 family) and rentable grounds, gardens and programme room, run by the town's Recreation and Culture department at 30 Tillson Avenue. It is the only designated national historic site in the town and the clearest piece of civic real estate in the record. |
Government | —A |
| Former Siemens Gamesa wind-turbine blade plant Tillsonburg |
Industrial | Not established a paid title search would answer it The largest industrial closure in the town's recent history, and a building whose current owner could not be established. CBC, 18 July 2017: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy announced the closure of its Tillsonburg blade manufacturing plant at an all-staff meeting; 'the closure will affect 340 employees in total and will be conducted in phases throughout 2017', with 206 given notice immediately. The company cited a global wind market with severe price pressure. Siemens had been the recipient of an $850 million Ontario contract for 140 wind turbines in 2014. No subsequent sale or current owner of the building appears in any record opened. |
Not established | —A |
| Tillsonburg post office 54 Brock Street East 613 sq m |
Retail | Canada Post Corporation The Directory of Federal Real Property, property 61905: Crown Owned, Commercial Retail use, one building of 613 sq m, custodian Canada Post, municipality and metro area both recorded as Tillsonburg. It is the only Crown-owned federal building in the town. |
Government | —A |
| Livingston Centre 96 Tillson Avenue 413 sq m of federal tenancy |
Office | Not established a paid title search would answer it The federal register records Public Services and Procurement Canada occupying 413 sq m at the Livingston Centre under Lease or Licence, not Crown Owned - the only open evidence of a private commercial landlord anywhere in Tillsonburg, and the register names the tenant and never the owner. Establishing the owner would cost $37.10 through OnLand. The Livingston Centre is the town's community services building on Tillson Avenue; no corporate owner appears in any source opened. |
Not established | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
The Financial Information Return for Tillsonburg T, 2025, last updated 28 August 2026, shows the tax base of a residential town with a modest industrial fringe and no office market whatsoever: the office-building class does not appear in Tillsonburg's return at all, where Woodstock has $2.9 million and Stratford $2.9 million. Multi-residential at $91.6 million is 4.3 per cent of the base, which is high for a town of 22,090, and yet no apartment or condominium-apartment unit was completed in 2025.
Who owns the town
At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.
Every holder that can be established in Tillsonburg from an open source is a government. The Town of Tillsonburg runs two industrial parks, a 140-acre land bank it is selling at a published price, a national historic site and a regional airport outside its own limits. Canada Post owns the post office. Beyond that the record is blank: no family holding company, no REIT, no named owner of the town's enclosed shopping centre, and no current owner for the 1970s plant that Siemens turned into a wind-blade factory and closed in 2017. Farmland inside the boundary is assessed at $5.7 million, the smallest of the five towns in this batch, so there is no agricultural holding either.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Town of Tillsonburg The town's own pages: the Van Norman Innovation Park 'provides industrial developers with a 140-acre Master Plan', Phase 1 'sold out in under 1 year', Phase 2A offers 15 acres of development-ready, fully serviced land at $250,000 an acre with no town development charges, and a further 125 acres (Phase 2B) is planned and can be waitlisted. The town lists Forest Hill Industrial Park as its other main industrial area, owns the Tillsonburg Regional Airport at 244411 Airport Road and runs Annandale National Historic Site and Museum at 30 Tillson Avenue. |
Government | 140-acre Van Norman Innovation Park, plus Forest Hill Industrial Park, the airport and Annandale NHSA |
| Canada Post Corporation The Directory of Federal Real Property, property 61905, records the Tillsonburg post office at 54 Brock St. E. as Crown Owned, one building of 613 sq m. It is the only federally owned building in the town. Public Services and Procurement Canada's 413 sq m in the Livingston Centre at 96 Tillson Avenue is held by Lease or Licence, so the Crown there is a tenant of a landlord the register does not name. |
Government | 613 sq m Crown owned at 54 Brock Street EastA |
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
Tillsonburg completed 77 new residential units in 2025 and not one of them was an apartment. Eleven builders are licensed with Ontario's Home Construction Regulatory Authority at a Tillsonburg address, and two of them - Gentrac Building Corporation and Permterra Development Corporation - share an address at 18 Harvey Street, one building freehold and one condominium. The directory records the licensee's registered address, not the location of the homes, so a Woodstock or London builder working in Tillsonburg does not appear here.
| Name | Type | Possessions 2016-2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Tillsonburg Developments Inc. 213 Tillson Avenue, Tillsonburg; the account shows an initial HCRA licence date of 28 August 2023 but carries 84 freehold possessions across the 2016-2026 window, which means the possessions sit under a continuing business whose licence record was reopened. Two chargeable conciliations, no claims amount recorded. |
Private company | 84A |
| 1551991 Ontario Inc. 10 Michaels Lane, Tillsonburg; licensed since 24 December 2003. 54 freehold possessions, one chargeable conciliation, no claims amount recorded. The company trades under no operating name in the directory. |
Private company | 54A |
| Dalm Construction Limited 41 King Street, Tillsonburg; licensed since 2 November 1989, the longest-standing Tillsonburg licensee. 30 freehold possessions but four chargeable conciliations and $322,790.76 in minor claims - the heaviest claims record of any builder registered in the five towns in this batch. |
Family / private | 30A |
| Gentrac Building Corporation 18 Harvey Street, Tillsonburg; licensed since 30 April 2002. 20 freehold possessions, no conciliations and no claims recorded. |
Private company | 20A |
| Permterra Development Corporation 18 Harvey Street, Tillsonburg - the same address as Gentrac; licensed since 13 February 2008. All 12 possessions are condominium rather than freehold, no conciliations and no claims recorded. |
Private company | 12A |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
Nothing that could reasonably be called a commercial landlord was established in Tillsonburg. The only commercial ground with a named owner is the town's own industrial land bank; the only open evidence of a private landlord anywhere is a federal lease in the Livingston Centre whose owner the register does not name; and the enclosed shopping centre has no owner in any source opened. In a town whose return carries no office-building assessment class at all, that is less an omission than a description.
| Name | Type | Land / floor area |
|---|---|---|
| Town of Tillsonburg The town is the supplier of serviced industrial land in Tillsonburg: Phase 1 of the Van Norman Innovation Park sold out in under a year, Phase 2A releases 15 acres at $250,000 an acre with no town development charges, and 125 further acres are planned. Forest Hill Industrial Park and a rail-served industrial area are the town's other two commercial land holdings. |
Government | 140 acres at Van Norman, plus Forest Hill Industrial ParkA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Who owns the Tillsonburg Town Centre, the town's enclosed shopping centre. No filing, press release or municipal record opened names an owner, and the shopping-centre assessment class ($28.33 million) is the only public measure of it.
- Who owns the former Siemens Gamesa blade plant today. The 2017 closure is firmly established; the building's subsequent sale, if any, is not. A widely repeated figure of 253,000 square feet and a prior Magna International occupancy appear only in search summaries of pages that could not be opened, and are not claimed here.
- What the Town of Tillsonburg paid to assemble the Van Norman Innovation Park, and what Phase 1 realised. The $250,000 an acre figure is the town's published asking price for Phase 2A, not a completed transaction.
- The owner of the Livingston Centre at 96 Tillson Avenue, where the federal government leases 413 square metres.
- Whether the Tillsonburg Regional Airport is assessed anywhere. The town's own page places it seven kilometres north of the town, which puts it outside the municipality whose return is used for this record's core figures, and no assessment for it appears in Tillsonburg's Financial Information Return.
- Any link between a property holding and elected office in Tillsonburg. Nothing was established and the record carries none.
Sources
- Overview: land registry — Government of Ontario (ServiceOntario) · openA
- Bulletin No. 2026-04: Land Services Fee Changes effective November 2, 2026 (Schedule I, Tariffs of Fees) — Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, ServiceOntario, Land Registry Services Branch · openA
- MPAC home page (AboutMyProperty, propertyline, Municipal Connect) — Municipal Property Assessment Corporation · registrationA
- OnLand - Ontario Land Registry Access — Teranet / ServiceOntario · paidA
- Financial Information Return bulk CSV, fir_data_2025.csv (Schedule 26, Taxation and Payments-in-Lieu Summary; Schedule 22, Municipal and School Board Taxation; Schedule 02, Statistical Information) — Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing · openA
- Ontario Builder Directory (/api/builders, /api/buildersummary endpoints) — Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property, open data extract (dfrp-rbif.xml) — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat · openA
- Van Norman Innovation Park (VIP) - Phase 2 industrial land, 140-acre master plan, $250,000/acre — Town of Tillsonburg · openA
- Tillsonburg Regional Airport (location: 7 kilometres north of the Town of Tillsonburg, 244411 Airport Rd) — Town of Tillsonburg · openA
- Annandale National Historic Site and Museum — Town of Tillsonburg · openA
- 340 jobs axed at Siemens wind turbine plant in Tillsonburg — CBC News · openA
- Available Lands and Buildings (Forest Hill Industrial Park, Van Norman Innovation Park, rail-served industrial lands) — Town of Tillsonburg · openA