Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Business First of Buffalo:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parking lot give away nothing of the actual activitgy inside oneof Manassas’ newest building. On one end, investigators and scientistsa pore over hair and tissue DNA of some ofthe state’s most dangeroua criminals to learn what they did, whiles at the other, they pry open the dead bodie of society’s latest victims to learn what was done to The lab is located on a 10-acre spot across from ’w campus in the massive maze of the Innovation@Princ e William County Technology Park. The 114,000-square-foof building will replace thestate 30,000-square-foot headquarterxs in Fairfax, where officials say the space was burstintg at the seams.
“When we moved into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a year,” said Amy lab director for the Northern Virginiaforensics lab, one of four branchees statewide. “Coming here, we can go back to being full-service.” Now, the combined spac for the Northern Virginia branch of the Departmenft ofForensic Science, which claims 60,000 squarew feet, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, claiminfg 26,000 square feet, is intended to offer room to grow throughg at least the next decade.
With 46 employee s there now, the building has a capacity of 110 The new building also houses anew 26,000-square-fooy training suite, an improvement from the old building, where clasds attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employere offices. In addition, the evidence vault for the forensics lab, whic oversees roughly 10,000 cases at any given is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a larget firearms and ballistics testing area allows investigatorx to test more powerful weaponws than before.
Plus, the new medical examiner’s offic space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodiew ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab wherse examiners can test potentiallh contagious bacteria or viruses, includinf anthrax. The project, which has applied for the silvef level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design greenbuilding standards, was built as a public-privatew partnership deal that Prince William Countyh officials hope will also boostf its biotech portfolio.
The state footeed the bill, but awardeds the overall development contractto Rockville-based , whichy transferred the project to McLean-based LLC monthds later when the latter’s founders splirt off from Scheer in 2007. was the generalk contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneyand Co. servingg as the principal designersand engineers. The building’s opening, hosted by Appian, comes days after the District pulledf backa $133 million constructionj contract to build its own consolidatefd forensics lab in Southwest D.C. becauses of concerns that competingbids weren’yt properly evaluated. D.C.
leaders are plannintg to erecta $220 million building on the site of the formed Metropolitan Police Department First District Headquarterw at 415 4th St. SW.