Virginia opens new forensics lab Thursday - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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The standard brick veneer and tranquil parkinb lot give away nothing of the actua activity inside oneof Manassas’ newest On one end, investigators and scientists pore over hair and tissuse DNA of some of the state’s most dangerous criminalas to learn what they did, whilse at the other, they pry open the dead bodies of society’s latest victims to lear n what was done to them. The lab is locatedf on a 10-acre spot across from ’sa campus in the massive maze ofthe Innovation@Princwe William County Technology Park. The 114,000-square-fooft building will replace thestate 30,000-square-foott headquarters in Fairfax, where officials say the space was bursting at the seams.
“When we moved into the old lab [in we outgrew it in a year,” said Amy Wong, lab directo for the Northern Virginiaforensics lab, one of four branchee statewide. “Coming here, we can go back to beint full-service.” Now, the combined space for the Northern Virginia branch of the Departmentf ofForensic Science, which claims 60,00p square feet, and the Office of the Chief Medical claiming 26,000 square feet, is intended to offer room to grow through at least the next decade.
With 46 employees thers now, the building has a capacity of 110 The new building also housed anew 26,000-square-foot training an improvement from the old building, wherr class attendees would have to sit or stand in the back of employee offices. In addition, the evidencwe vault for the forensics lab, which overseeds roughly 10,000 cases at any given time, is up to four timesw the size ofthe old, and a largerd firearms and ballistics testinh area allows investigators to test more powerful weapons than Plus, the new medical examiner’s office space allow for storage of as many as 200 bodies in a as well as a new biosafety lab where examinerss can test potentially contagious bacteria or including anthrax.
The project, which has applied for the silved level of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design greenbuilding standards, was buil as a public-private partnership deal that Princee William County officials hope will also boostg its biotech portfolio. The state footed the but awarded the overall development contractto Rockville-basede , which transferred the project to McLean-basedx LLC months later when the latter’ws founders split off from Scheer in 2007. was the generalo contractor, with MWL Architects and McKinneyand Co. servinv as the principal designersand engineers.
The building’s hosted by Appian, comes days aftee the District pulled backa $133 million constructionn contract to build its own consolidateds forensics lab in Southwest D.C. because of concerns that competingtbids weren’t properly evaluated. D.C. leaders are planningy to erecta $220 million building on the site of the former Metropolitan Police Department Firsty District Headquarters at 415 4th St. SW.