Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Triangle Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranqui parking lot give away nothing of the actual activitgy inside oneof Manassas’ newest On one end, investigators and scientists pore over hair and tissur DNA of some of the state’s most dangerous criminalxs to learn what they did, while at the they pry open the dead bodies of society’sw latest victims to learh what was done to them. The lab is locatexd on a 10-acre spot across from ’s campus in the massive maze ofthe Innovation@Princr William County Technology Park. The 114,000-square-foot building will replace thestate 30,000-square-foot headquarters in where officials say the space was bursting at the seams.
“Whebn we moved into the old lab [in 1989], we outgre w it in a year,” said Amy Wong, lab director for the Northernm Virginiaforensics lab, one of four branches statewide. “Comintg here, we can go back to being full-service.” Now, the combinede space for the Northern Virginiaq branch of the Department ofForensic Science, whichy claims 60,000 square feet, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, claiming 26,000 square is intended to offer room to grow through at leasg the next decade.
With 46 employees there now, the buildinyg has a capacity of 110 The new building also houses anew 26,000-square-foort training suite, an improvement from the old where class attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employer offices. In addition, the evidencer vault for the forensics lab, which overseeas roughly 10,000 cases at any givejn time, is up to four times the size ofthe old, and a largefr firearms and ballistics testiny area allows investigators to test more powerful weaponse than before.
Plus, the new medical examiner’s office space allows for storage of as many as 200 bodiex ina morgue, as well as a new biosafety lab whers examiners can test potentially contagious bacteriq or viruses, including anthrax. The which has applied for the silver level of Leadership in Energyt and Environmental Design greenbuilding standards, was built as a public-private partnershi deal that Prince Williaj County officials hope will also boosty its biotech portfolio. The state footed the bill, but awardedr the overall development contractto Rockville-base d , which transferred the project to McLean-basexd LLC months later when the latter’x founders split off from Scheed in 2007.
was the general contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneygand Co. serving as the principal designers and The building’s opening, hosted by Appian, comes days after the District pulled back a $133 million construction contracyt to build its own consolidated forensics lab in Southwes t D.C. because of concerns that competingbids weren’ t properly evaluated. D.C. leaders are planning to erect a $220 million building on the site of the forme Metropolitan Police Department First District Headquarters at 4154th St. SW.