Real Estate · Economic Development · Placemaking

Space shapes life beforeanyone decides it should.

And I am committed to creating spaces where people thrive

Hello. I'm Richard Kofi Boakye Bempong, but everyone calls me Kofi — and you can too.

I'm obsessed with cities and what makes them work. This site is a collection of my work and writing. I'm completing concurrent degrees in urban planning and public administration at Harvard this spring, and I'm actively looking for what's next.

Writing

2 Articles — More Coming Soon
Housing Finance

Bridging the Gap: A Primer on Affordable Housing Finance

A map of the affordable housing finance system for everyone who has sat in a room full of housing people and wondered whether they were the only one who felt lost.

March 2026
Housing Policy

Our Best Affordable Housing Tool Has a Problem

The LIHTC program has financed 3.5 million homes. But the small developers best positioned to close the remaining gap can't get through the door.

March 2026
Placemaking

What Main Streets Got Right Before Anyone Thought to Study Them

Decades before "placemaking" became a planning buzzword, Main Street programs were quietly rebuilding local economies from the ground up. The lessons still apply.

Coming Soon

Selected Work

4 Projects

Real Estate Finance, Affordable housing underwriting, mixed-use development, and place-based strategy.

Architectural render of 1576 Blue Hill Ave
Total Development Cost
$25.8M
4% LIHTC
51 Units Mixed-Income
1.148x Year 1 DSCR
8 Sources Capital Stack
Housing Finance LIHTC Financial Modeling

1576 Blue Hill Ave — LIHTC Pro Forma

Full 4% LIHTC development pro forma for a 51-unit mixed-income affordable housing project in Mattapan, Boston. Eight interconnected worksheets covering credit pricing, multi-source capital stacking, and 23-year operating projections.

Value-Add Acquisition
$42.5M
240 Units
35.3% Levered IRR
2.37x Equity Multiple
98.4% GP IRR
5.50% Exit Cap
REPE Value-Add GP/LP Waterfall

Real Estate Private Equity Value-Add Apartment Acquisition Model

Full private equity acquisition model for a 240-unit Class B value-add apartment. 36-month levered DCF, dual-tranche debt, renovation pipeline, and two-tier GP/LP waterfall with promote.

56 Fulton Street rendering
Development Design + Finance Team Project

56 Fulton Street — Future-Proof Development

Ground-up 90-unit luxury multifamily on a city-owned North End site, designed to facilitate residential-to-office conversion. Full development model with SOFR construction loan, lease-up engine, and three-tier GP/LP waterfall.

Revive
Farms
Bomfa, Ghana
Agro-Hospitality Ghana Development Finance

Revive Farms Phase 1 — Agro-Hospitality Financial Model

Full development and operating financial model for a 12-acre agro-hospitality resort in Bomfa, Ghana. Covers $2.9M capitalization, revenue waterfall across farm, lodging, and events, and a 10-year IRR analysis for equity investors.

About

R. Kofi Bempong

I grew up in Accra, where I learned early that the built environment is never neutral. The neighborhood you're born into determines whether the floods reach your front door, whether you can get to school, whether your family has room to actually be together. That understanding has followed me across everything I've done since — founding a coworking space, repositioning a mixed-use building, underwriting affordable housing deals in Boston, and now finishing dual graduate degrees at Harvard.

I'm someone who moves between worlds that don't always talk to each other: finance and design, public purpose and private capital, West Africa and the American city. I find that interesting. I think the work gets better when you don't stay inside one of them.

I'm intellectually restless by nature. I read across fields, follow threads that don't obviously connect, and tend to stay with a question longer than is probably useful. That's what pulled me toward planning and housing finance, and it's what keeps pulling me toward the harder questions. Not just how to make a deal work. But what the deal is actually for.

Location Cambridge, MA
Graduating May 2026
View Resume

Recognition

2026 FHLB Boston Affordable Housing Design Competition First Prize
2026 Harvard Plimpton Poorvu Urban Design Prize Third Prize
2025 Harvard Plimpton Poorvu Urban Design Prize First Prize
2024 FHLB Boston Affordable Housing Design Competition Second Prize
2024 Harvard Presidential Scholarship Recipient
2024 Joint Center For Housing Studies Community Service Fellowship Recipient