■ On Wednesday, April 4, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Chola Dynasty bronze of Shiva as Brahma had been bought at auction by the Cleveland Museum of Art for $4,072,000. The amount is a record for a sculpture of its type, and just tops the high end of what Sotheby’s predicted it would fetch. Though a loss to the museum’s collection, this particular transaction has three clear positives: 1) The statue remains in a public museum, rather than disappearing into a private collection; 2) Cleveland is nearby; and 3) It’s a good price, and pushes the total proceeds to the Albright-Knox so far close to $30 million.

■ The death of 24-year-old Jonathan Fundalinski at the site of developer Rocco Termini’s restoration of the Webb Building has led to an interesting examination of the way politically connected developers interact with city government. The developer’s hard-driving personality and political machinations have been revealed. Termini’s past projects—vinyl-sided, suburban-style new builds on the city’s Near East Side, for example—have been contrasted with his stylish new downtown loft projects, carved out of facades that might otherwise have been demolished. The conditions that led to Fundalinski’s fatal fall have been examined and continue to be the subject of official investigations. Experts have been empaneled to study the way the city’s inspection teams work with developers.

Missing has been a close analysis of the financing of Termini’s projects. Termini has been more willing than most developers to use state and federal historic preservation tax credits, which taken together can amount to 50 percent of a project’s total cost. When developer Carl Paladino looked at doing a project similar to Termini’s in the Webb Building, he costed it out at $3.5 million. Unfortunately, he determined he could not make a profit on the project if he invested more than $1.5 million in the renovation. As a result, he sought to have the building demolished. Preservationists successfully lobbied the city to prevent that, and the building sat idle for years. (Some have accused Paladino of allowing the building to rot in order to justify an emergency demolition later. Paladino denies that.)

Termini came along and bought the Webb Building from Paladino last year, and said he could rehab it for $9.5 million—a lot more expensive than Paladino’s $3.5 million project. Plus, the historic preservation tax credits, which can be sold in order to finance a project upfront, would raise half the money, or $4.75 million. That alone is $1.25 million more than Paladino estimated the project would cost—and all taxpayer subsidized.

Construction costs have risen precipitously, of course, but loft conversions are relatively cheap—that’s why they are popular among both artist types with no money and developer types who want to make lots of it. So how does that add up?