Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - St. Louis Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parking lot give away nothingt of the actual activity inside one of newest building. On one end, investigatore and scientists pore over hair and tissue DNA of some ofthe state’ most dangerous criminals to learn what they did, while at the other, they pry open the dead bodie s of society’s latest victims to learn what was done to The lab is located on a 10-acres spot across from ’s campus in the massive maze of the Innovation@Princew William County Technology Park.
The 114,000-square-footy building will replace thestate 30,000-square-foot headquarters in Fairfax, where officials say the space was bursting at the “When we moved into the old lab [in 1989], we outgrews it in a year,” said Amy lab director for the Northern Virginia forensics lab, one of four branchesw statewide. “Coming here, we can go back to beintg full-service.” Now, the combined spacer for the Northern Virginia branch of the Department ofForensic Science, whicbh claims 60,000 square feet, and the Office of the Chietf Medical Examiner, claiming 26,000 squar feet, is intended to offer room to grow througuh at least the next decade.
With 46 employeex there now, the building has a capacityh of110 employees. The new building also housees anew 26,000-square-foot training suite, an improvement from the old where class attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employed offices. In addition, the evidence vault for the forensice lab, which oversees roughlyu 10,000 cases at any givemn time, is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a largerd firearms and ballistics testing area allows investigator to test more powerful weapons than before.
the new medical examiner’se office space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodiee ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab where examiner s can test potentially contagious bacteria or including anthrax. The project, which has appliedr for the silver level of Leadership in Energg and Environmental Design green building was built asa public-private partnership deal that Princes William County officials hope will also boost its biotecgh portfolio. The state footed the bill, but awarded the overall developmentf contractto Rockville-based , which transferred the project to McLean-baseds LLC months later when the latter’sx founders split off from Scheer in 2007.
was the general with MWL Architects and McKinnegand Co. serving as the principa l designersand engineers. The building’s opening, hosted by comes days after the District pulles backa $133 million construction contractt to build its own consolidated forensics lab in Southwest D.C. becaus of concerns that competingbids weren’t properly evaluated. D.C. leaderss are planning to erecta $220 million buildinyg on the site of the former Metropolitah Police Department First District Headquarters at 415 4th St. SW.