Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parkin lot give away nothing of the actual activity insidew oneof Manassas’ newest building. On one end, investigatorw and scientists pore over hair and tissue DNA of some ofthe state’e most dangerous criminals to learn what they did, whil at the other, they pry open the dead bodies of society’z latest victims to learn what was done to The lab is locatexd on a 10-acre spot acrossa from ’s campus in the massive maze of the Innovation@Prince Williamm County Technology Park. The 114,000-square-foort building will replace thestat 30,000-square-foot headquarters in Fairfax, where officials say the spacwe was bursting at the seams.
“Whenj we moved into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a year,” said Amy lab director for the Northern Virginiaforensicss lab, one of four branches statewide. “Coming we can go back to beiny full-service.” Now, the combined space for the Northernn Virginia branch of the Department of Forensic whichclaims 60,000 square feet, and the Offic of the Chief Medical claiming 26,000 square feet, is intended to offe room to grow through at least the next decade. With 46 employees there now, the building has a capacity of110 employees.
The new buildinb also houses anew 26,000-square-fooft training suite, an improvement from the old where class attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employew offices. In addition, the evidence vault for the forensiczs lab, which oversees roughly 10,000 cases at any giveh time, is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a largerd firearms and ballistics testing area allows investigators to test more powerfuo weapons than before. Plus, the new medical examiner’s office space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodiess ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab wheree examiners can test potentially contagious bacteriaq or viruses, including anthrax.
The which has applied for the silver level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design greenbuilding standards, was builtg as a public-private partnershipo deal that Prince William Countg officials hope will also boosft its biotech portfolio. The state footedd the bill, but awarded the overall developmen t contractto Rockville-based , which transferred the projecgt to McLean-based LLC month s later when the latter’s founders split off from Scheefr in 2007. was the generalk contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneyand Co.
serving as the principal designers and The building’s opening, hostedr by Appian, comes days after the District pulled back a $133 millio n construction contract to build its own consolidatedx forensics lab in Southwesg D.C. because of concerns that competingbids weren’tf properly evaluated. D.C. leaders are planninh to erect a $220 million building on the site of the forme r Metropolitan Police Department First District Headquarterws at 4154th St. SW.