Business briefs: Masons buy and will renovate Selkirk Building

The Masonic Temple Association of Spokane has purchased the historic Selkirk Building at 506 W. Second Ave., following the $1.1 million sale of the stately Masonic Center on West Riverside Avenue in 2013.

The new building is much smaller, but Randy Guegel, the association’s president, said that was the point.

“None of us wanted to leave that magnificent old building, but 110,000 square feet was simply too much for us,” he said in a statement.

The Selkirk is a 13,000-square-foot brick building with three stories built in 1910, and the Masons have plans to renovate the dilapidated structure beginning next month, according to a news release from the association. The building will have at least one large “lodge” room, full-service kitchen, library, museum and public meeting space.

The price of the building was not disclosed, but current records from the county assessor’s office show the building assessed at $364,500.

Union Pacific slowdown prompts furloughs

OMAHA, Neb. – Union Pacific has furloughed about 900 railroad workers because shipping demand has been weaker than expected.

The Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad said last month that it had begun reducing rail crews and storing some locomotives because shipping volume had been weaker than expected this year.

Union Pacific Corp. spokesman Aaron Hunt said the recent furloughs were also part of the railroad’s effort to align its workforce with the current market.

The number of shipments Union Pacific has been delivering so far this year is down about 3 percent, which includes a 30 percent drop in coal carloads.

The Association of American Railroads says rail traffic nationwide is down less than 1 percent, but coal shipments are nearly 7 percent lower.

Chase branch cutback means 5,000 fewer jobs

NEW YORK – JPMorgan Chase & Co. will cut about 5,000 jobs over the next year, as the bank closes branches and slims down its operations, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing anonymous sources.

The cuts will come from across the bank, but particularly from the consumer bank. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, at an investor conference this week, said the average Chase branch would lose one employee – mostly through attrition.

JPMorgan executives said in February that they expected to have 300 fewer branches over the next two years – roughly 5 percent of its network – because more customers were doing everyday banking transactions online or on their smartphones. The bank had 5,570 branches as of the first quarter.

Apple buys maker of futuristic software

SAN FRANCISCO – Apple has bought a company that makes augmented-reality software, which adds information or images to real-world scenes when viewed through a special headset or even a smartphone camera.

Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are all working on augmented- or virtual-reality products. Augmented reality can add hand-drawn sketches, navigational directions, historic video or computer-generated, three-dimensional images to a real-world scene. Virtual reality can make viewers feel as if they are immersed in an artificial world.

Apple on Thursday confirmed the purchase of Munich-based Metaio for an undisclosed sum but did not say what it plans to do with the technology.