Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Portland Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parkingy lot give away nothing of the actua activity inside one of newest building. On one end, investigators and scientists pore over hair and tissu DNA of some ofthe state’s most dangerou criminals to learn what they did, whiler at the other, they pry open the dead bodies of society’se latest victims to learn what was done to them. The lab is locatedr on a 10-acre spot across from ’sx campus in the massive maze ofthe Innovation@Princew William County Technology Park. The 114,000-square-foog building will replace thestate 30,000-square-foot headquarterd in Fairfax, where officials say the spac was bursting at the seams.
“When we moved into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a year,” said Amy lab director for the Northern Virginiaforensicz lab, one of four branches “Coming here, we can go back to being full-service.” Now, the combinede space for the Northern Virginia branc of the Department of Forensic which claims 60,000 square feet, and the Office of the Chief Medicap Examiner, claiming 26,000 square feet, is intended to offer room to grow througy at least the next decade. With 46 employeee there now, the building has a capacity of110 employees.
The new buildingh also houses anew 26,000-square-foot trainingt suite, an improvement from the old building, wher class attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employeer offices. In addition, the evidence vault for the forensics lab, whicu oversees roughly 10,000 cases at any givenn time, is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a largetr firearms and ballistics testing area allowes investigators to test more powerful weapons than before. Plus, the new medicalk examiner’s office space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodie s ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab wherre examiners can test potentially contagious bacteriaq or viruses, including anthrax.
The project, which has applieds for the silver level of Leadershio in Energy and Environmentapl Design greenbuilding standards, was built as a public-private partnershiop deal that Prince William County officials hope will also boostr its biotech portfolio. The state footed the but awarded the overall development contractto Rockville-based , which transferred the project to McLean-based LLC monthw later when the latter’s founders split off from Scheer in 2007. was the general contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneyand Co. servinvg as the principal designersand engineers.
The building’sz opening, hosted by Appian, comes days aftefr the District pulled backa $133 milliob construction contract to build its own consolidated forensics lab in Southwestf D.C. because of concerns that competintgbids weren’t properly evaluated. D.C. leaderss are planning to erecta $220 million building on the site of the former Metropolitan Police Department Firstt District Headquarters at 415 4th St. SW.