diff --git a/third_party/CMakeLists.txt b/third_party/CMakeLists.txt
index 1f2e181c..0b5cd972 100644
--- a/third_party/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/third_party/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -5,20 +5,27 @@
 
 set(TT_MLIR_VERSION "4d28d1522647c51da4bd026fdf3e9f9cdde07f32")
 
-if (TOOLCHAIN STREQUAL "ON")
+if (BUILD_TOOLCHAIN)
     cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.20)
     project(ttmlir-toolchain LANGUAGES CXX C)
+    if (NOT EXISTS ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir)
+        execute_process(
+            COMMAND git clone --recursive https://github.com/tenstorrent/tt-mlir.git ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir
+        )
+    endif()
     execute_process(
-        COMMAND git clone --recursive https://github.com/tenstorrent/tt-mlir.git ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir
-        RESULT_VARIABLE result1
-        OUTPUT_VARIABLE output1
-        ERROR_VARIABLE error_output1
+        COMMAND /bin/bash -c "git checkout ${TT_MLIR_VERSION}"
+        WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir
     )
-    if (NOT ${result1} EQUAL 0)
-        message(FATAL_ERROR "Failed to clone tt-mlir: ${error_output1}")
-    endif()
+
+    execute_process(
+        COMMAND pwd
+        WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir
+    )
+
     execute_process(
-        COMMAND /bin/bash -c "cd ${PROJECT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir && git checkout ${TT_MLIR_VERSION}"
+        COMMAND /bin/bash ../../../build_mlir_env.sh
+        WORKING_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/tt-mlir/src/tt-mlir
     )
 else()
     set(TT_RUNTIME_DEBUG OFF CACHE BOOL "Enable runtime debugging")
diff --git a/third_party/build_mlir_env.sh b/third_party/build_mlir_env.sh
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4e67f1ec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/third_party/build_mlir_env.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: (c) 2025 Tenstorrent AI ULC
+#
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+
+cmake -B env/build env
+cmake --build env/build