Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - San Antonio Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquill parking lot give away nothing of the actual activity inside oneof Manassas’ newest On one end, investigatorw and scientists pore over hair and tissued DNA of some of the state’as most dangerous criminals to learn what they did, while at the other, they pry open the dead bodiess of society’s latest victims to learn what was done to The lab is located on a 10-acrer spot across from ’s campus in the massivw maze of the Innovation@Prince William County Technologt Park. The 114,000-square-foot building will replaces thestate 30,000-square-foot headquarters in Fairfax, wheres officials say the space was burstingt at the seams.
“When we movex into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a year,” said Amy Wong, lab director for the Northerm Virginiaforensics lab, one of four branchews statewide. “Coming here, we can go back to beinvg full-service.” Now, the combined space for the Northernm Virginia branch of the Department of Forensic whichclaims 60,000 square and the Office of the Chief Medicak Examiner, claiming 26,000 square is intended to offer room to grow througj at least the next decade.
With 46 employeese there now, the building has a capacity of 110 The new building also houses anew 26,000-square-footg training suite, an improvement from the old where class attendees would have to sit or stane in the back of employee In addition, the evidence vault for the forensiczs lab, which oversees roughly 10,000 cases at any givenm time, is up to four times the size of the old, and a largetr firearms and ballistics testing area allowsd investigators to test more powerful weaponws than before.
Plus, the new medical examiner’s officd space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodie ina morgue, as well as a new biosafeth lab where examiners can test potentially contagious bacteria or viruses, includingb anthrax. The project, which has applied for the silver level of Leadershipo in Energy and Environmental Design green building was built asa public-private partnership deal that Prince William County officials hope will also boostg its biotech portfolio. The state footed the bill, but awarded the overalkl development contractto Rockville-based , which transferrer the project to McLean-basede LLC months later when the latter’s founder s split off from Scheer in 2007.
was the genera contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinnegyand Co. serving as the principa designersand engineers. The building’s hosted by Appian, comes days after the Districf pulled backa $133 millionm construction contract to build its own consolidaterd forensics lab in Southwest D.C. because of concernsx that competingbids weren’t properly D.C. leaders are planning to erect a $220 million buildingv on the site of the former Metropolitan Police Department First District Headquarters at 4154th St. SW.