A year before groundbreaking: how Kastle built security into The Wharf from day one

About Hoffman & Associates

Hoffman & Associates is a Washington, D.C.-based real estate development firm known for large-scale, mixed-use urban projects. The company set out to transform a mile of underused Southwest waterfront into The Wharf, a destination combining retail, office, restaurant, and residential space delivered in phases, with Phase 1 opening in 2017.

The challenge

Projects of this scale are typically built the way commercial real estate has always been built: security gets designed after the architecture, engineering, and construction plans are already locked in.

That sequence creates problems developers do not discover until it is too late. Access control and video systems added after the fact often mean late-stage change orders, on-site modifications, and equipment that never quite fits the building it was bolted onto. For a waterfront destination built to draw visitors, there was also a real reputational risk: an overt security presence that made the site feel like a monitored facility instead of an inviting public space. Hoffman & Associates needed a security partner willing to get involved before the design was finished.

The solution

Kastle joined The Wharf’s project team 12 months before the developer broke ground on Phase 1, during the schematic design phase and well ahead of construction documentation and bidding. Internally, Kastle calls this getting involved “before the pour”: engaging while a building is still lines on a drawing, not concrete in the ground. That timing let Kastle treat access control and video surveillance as core design elements alongside electrical, HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, and structural planning, rather than as features layered onto a finished building.

The engagement began with a no-obligation, no-cost security consultation and planning phase, followed by design development documents that mapped the security technology plan directly onto the building’s other systems. Kastle covered the cost of that upfront design work, and the developer paid nothing until a system was selected and implemented. Drawing on nearly 50 years of experience securing a wide range of properties, Kastle specified technology that fit The Wharf’s scale and waterfront setting without requiring a visible security presence that would work against the experience the developer was trying to create.

The outcome

The Wharf’s Phase 1 delivery stayed on schedule and on budget, a rare outcome for a development of its size and complexity. Security technology is woven into the site instead of standing apart from it, so visitors experience a vibrant, open waterfront destination rather than a monitored one. The approach also set the template Kastle carried into The Wharf’s later phases and into its ongoing CloudVMS-based video security operation.