As medical marijuana matures, talent follows

THE#BCBIZDAILY
A medical marijuana producer hires a new CEO and Nordstrom plans on hiring one thousand

New dealer in town
Nanaimo-based Tilray, one of 16 growers to acquire a license from Health Canada to produce medical marjiuana, has hired a new CEO, Greg Engel, a former pharmaceutical executive. The company opened a 60,000-sq.-ft. facility last April, where its grows, processes and packages its product. Like its cohorts in the newly legal cannabis business, the company is run by a diverse mix of researchers, horticulturalists, former RCMP officers and patients (which it is quick to promote—you’ll hardly find a shade of green on its website). With 3,000 customers, it’s also one of the country’s largest pot dealers

High-end hires
With Nordstrom‘s grand Vancouver opening less than six months away, the company is on a hiring spree, or so it says. The high-end Seattle-based department store plans on hiring 44 managers and up to 1,000 sales and support positions by June (don’t quit your job yet: Nordstom is yet to list the positions on its jobs page). The three-storey Pacific Centre store will be its third to open in Canada—the first opened at a suburban Calgary mall last September and another is set to open in Ottawa in March. The retailer plans to parachute in a 23-year veteran, Chris Wanlass, who has managed stores in San Francisco, Westchester County and most recently, Bellevue, Washington. 

Mall sale
Despite its Vancouver-centric appeal, the Nordstrom opening may not be the biggest mall story of the year. Commercial realtor Avison Young disclosed this week that The Bay Centre, a four-level shopping complex in downtown Victoria, was sold earlier this month in what it described as “likely one of the market’s biggest commercial real estate transactions in B.C. in 2015.” While a spokesperson for the firm did not disclose the sale price, a realtor speaking to Western Investor pegged it at between $100 and $105 million.