How the West Half Lives

The new West Half residences are being hailed as “a shift in the very fabric of DC living. In the heart of the anticipated Ballpark District, it’s right where the action is. Nationals Park, the Metro, the Capitol Riverfront and the Yards are within throwing distance, giving residents the freedom to explore their own indoor/outdoor and work/life balances.

And now the lucky residents of West Half will be able to text, stream and make calls with total confidence and abandon thanks to their cellular enhancement system by Illuminati Labs.

We installed a Wilson repeater system that serves all of West Half’s 420 units and the three below-ground garage levels, which required conduit. Here’s the kicker: the entire project was 100% retrofit. That means Illuminati Labs-folk had to cut approximately forty bazillion holes in the ceiling (slight hyperbole but it felt like forty bazillion) during the three solid weeks of installation.

It was a tough assignment but we absolutely loved working with Billy Frye, the Project Executive at Verity Commercial. Billy was acting as consultant for JBG Smith and coordinated with general contractor, HITT Construction.

West Half was designed by renowned New York-based ODA Architecture, and features an iconic multi-dimensional façade, modern interior and made-to-measure amenities.

Their in-building cellular system is just one of many forward thinking advances that West Half has made. It also boasts a green roof – a stormwater management practice that captures and stores rainfall in an engineered growing media that is designed to support plant growth. A portion of the captured rainfall evaporates or is taken up by plants, which helps reduce runoff volumes, peak runoff rates, and pollutant loads on development sites. Extensive green roofs are designed to have minimal maintenance requirements. Plant species are selected so that the roof does not need supplemental irrigation and requires minimal, infrequent fertilization after vegetation is initially established.