In this paper, we will identify certain subsemigroups of the unit ball of L ∞ [0, 1] as semitopological compactifications of locally compact abelian groups, using an idea of West (Proc R Ir Acad Sect A 67:27-37, 1968). Our result has been known for the additive group of integers since Bouziad et al. (Semigr Forum 62(1):98-102, 2001). We will construct a semitopological semigroup compactification for each locally compact abelian group G, depending on the algebraic properties of G. These compact semigroups can be realized as quotients of both the Eberlein compactification G e , and the weakly almost periodic compactification, G w , of G. The concrete structure of these compact quotients allows us to gain insight into known results by Brown (Bull Lond Math Soc 4:43-46, 1972) and Brown and Moran (Proc Lond Math Soc 22(3):203-216, 1971) and by Bordbar and Pym (Math Proc Camb Philos Soc 124(3):421-449, 1998), where for the groups G = Z and G = Z ∞ q , it is proved that G e and G w contain uncountably many idempotents and the set of idempotents is not closed.