Philly’s new forensics lab has been in the works for years, and the city is still deciding where to put it

It’s been a year and a half since Philadelphia secured millions of taxpayer dollars from the state to construct a new crime lab where police can process evidence including guns and drugs, and nearly a year since a dozen firms applied to house it.

But the city has yet to select a location, let alone start design and construction. Philadelphia’s plan to outfit the Police Department with a new and improved crime lab is now in its third year and won’t be completed for at least 18 more months.

The pace of progress has gun violence advocates publicly criticizing the city, and key players want new Mayor Cherelle L. Parker to move with more urgency than her predecessor.

“The city should have had this running at least 10 years ago,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said. “And every day that goes by without these resources is a day when people who are committing the kinds of crimes that tear apart society get away with it, and sometimes people who didn’t commit the crime at all end up in a jail cell.”

The Police Department’s existing crime lab and evidence processing space has been described as too small and too old. Virtually everyone in government agrees that police need a new lab — officials often pitched it as a potential solution amid a surge of gun violence that began in 2020.

Nearly every step of the financing and development process has been steeped in politics and included input from some of the biggest names in local government. Krasner, the progressive prosecutor, has been perhaps the most outspoken voice advocating for the new lab for years. State senators, including Sharif Street, the head of the state Democratic Party, helped secure funding.

» READ MORE: Inside Mayor Parker’s proposed police budget: New staff, equipment, and $50M for forensics

Then-Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration last year considered options for locations, but didn’t select one before he left office. That left Parker, inaugurated in January, to inherit a complex, yearslong project her staff wasn’t involved in developing.

Where to put it has become a competitive process as neighborhood groups and elected officials jockey for a slice of the city’s burgeoning life sciences ecosystem.

Parker’s administration is deciding among three locations that can house the lab amid lobbying by officials who represent the areas where it might go. Street and Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. want it in a North Philly warehouse complex. Councilmember Jamie Gauthier supports it going in a University City life sciences corridor. Councilmember Mark Squilla said it would make sense to put it a building across the street from the police headquarters on North Broad Street.

A spokesperson for Parker’s administration did not respond to questions. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel told City Council in April that the process of selecting a location is in “the homestretch.”

“We’re really excited,” Bethel said, “about the opportunity to get our men and women into a modern building that really accepts the demands of forensics today.”

The city is considering three locations very different from one another.

There are myriad considerations, said Jamie Doran, a co-managing partner at JacobsWyper Architects who specializes in science and technology.

There needs to be space for refrigerating and storing samples; parking and loading docs for police vehicles to drop off evidence; access to major roads and highways; security. And, Doran said, labs require spaces with higher ceilings than the typical office building because they need stronger ventilation systems and duct work.

That means putting a lab in the North Broad Street office building and data center could require retrofitting. The North Philly warehouse is something of a blank slate, and the lab space on Market Street is already outfitted for just that.

Gauthier, whose district includes the Market Street building, sees it as a no-brainer.

“It’s a state-of-the-art, newly built facility that is for this type of thing,” she said. “It is hard for me to imagine a site that would provide as much in terms of the building amenities and in the way that the building is set up for this type of work.”

Squilla, who represents the city’s 1st District including the site on North Broad Street, said constructing the lab in the middle of the city and just feet from the police headquarters makes the most logistical sense.

“I think it’s a great location, an amazing setup that already has a data center,” he said. “It makes all the sense in the world.”

But others say putting the lab at the former Budd manufacturing plant in North Philly, which was purchased by developers in 2019, could help revitalize what was once a vacant complex and a physical symbol of postindustrial decline.

» READ MORE: Budd plant to be redeveloped as life sciences hub

Street, the son of the former mayor, said North Philly residents have talked for decades about reinvigorating the plant that at its prime employed 7,000 workers. The city investing its own resources into the complex, Street said, could further jump-start investment and job creation in the area.

“This is a tremendous legacy thing,” he said. “I would love to be able to answer some of those older people before they leave us and say, ‘look, we did it. We got Budd done.’”

As Philadelphia police have for years failed to solve a majority of shootings in the city, it seemed pie-in-the-sky when Krasner — who has, over the years, feuded with police leaders to varying degrees — started saying the city needed to invest $50 million in a new crime lab. He argued his office could improve conviction rates if police brought more cases with irrefutable evidence from guns, cell phones, and DNA.

By 2022, others in government began to agree. City Council negotiated with the Kenney administration to add $5 million to the police budget for upgrades to the forensics lab.

About the same time, Street and State Sen. Vincent Hughes worked with Krasner to develop a plan to fund either a new lab or upgrades to the existing one. By late 2022, they secured $25 million in state funds to do so — double the lab’s previous annual budget.

Street said even Republicans were supportive of increasing funding for crime-fighting, especially just two years after the “defund the police” movement swept the nation.

» READ MORE: State awards $50M to improve Philly’s forensic crime lab and police surveillance systems

It was Kenney, Street said, who needed to be convinced. At the time, Kenney and Krasner were openly trading insults and strongly disagreed about how to stem a record amount of gun violence. And Street said it was his perception that the Kenney administration didn’t see the project as a priority.

But by early 2023, Kenney’s administration greenlit the project and budgeted $50 million for it.

Last summer, the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation — the city’s economic development arm — solicited firms to apply to be the site of a new lab. PIDC spokesperson Kevin Lessard said 14 applied. A selection committee made up of staff members from a half-dozen city departments evaluated the applicants, then developed a short-list.

City officials in the Kenney administration and, now, in the Parker administration have conducted multiple site visits and interviews with building owners. Now, it’s up to Parker and her top staff to pick a site.

Jones, who leads Council’s committee on public safety, said he’d like to see the lab in North Philly — but, more important, he said he just wants to see the lab, period.

“Wherever they put it is fine,” Jones said. “Let’s get it put somewhere.”

Inquirer staff writer Ellie Rushing contributed to this article.