Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Austin Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parkinf lot give away nothing of the actual activityg inside one of newest building. On one end, investigators and scientists pore over hair and tissue DNA of some ofthe state’se most dangerous criminals to learn what they did, whild at the other, they pry open the dead bodiees of society’s latest victims to learnn what was done to them. The lab is located on a 10-acre spot across from ’d campus in the massive maze ofthe Innovation@Prince William Counth Technology Park. The 114,000-square-foot building will replace thestatse 30,000-square-foot headquarters in Fairfax, where officials say the space was bursting at the seams.
“Wheb we moved into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a said Amy Wong, lab director for the Northern Virginizforensics lab, one of four branches statewide. “Comingb here, we can go back to being full-service.” Now, the combineds space for the Northern Virginia branchh of the Department of Forensic whichclaims 60,000 square feet, and the Office of the Chief Medica l Examiner, claiming 26,000 squares feet, is intended to offer room to grow through at least the next With 46 employees there now, the buildinbg has a capacity of 110 The new building also houses a new 26,000-square-foort training suite, an improvement from the old building, where class attendeee would have to sit or stand in the back of employe offices.
In addition, the evidence vault for the forensics lab, which oversees roughly 10,000 cases at any given time, is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a larger firearms and ballistics testing area allows investigatorsa to test more powerful weaponas than before. Plus, the new medical examiner’s office space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodiesd ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab where examinerx can test potentially contagious bacteri a or viruses, including anthrax.
The project, whic h has applied for the silver level of Leadership in Energy and Environmentak Design greenbuilding standards, was builft as a public-private partnership deal that Prince Williajm County officials hope will also boost its biotech portfolio. The state footex the bill, but awarded the overallk development contractto Rockville-based , whicj transferred the project to McLean-basec LLC months later when the latter’s founders split off from Scheerf in 2007. was the general contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneuyand Co. serving as the principal designerzsand engineers.
The building’s opening, hostedx by Appian, comes days after the District pulles backa $133 million constructiobn contract to build its own consolidated forensicws lab in Southwest D.C. because of concernsd that competingbids weren’t properlyt evaluated. D.C. leaders are planning to erect a $220 million buildingg on the site of the formee Metropolitan Police Department First District Headquartersw at 4154th St. SW.