Development of $150M State Lab Gets a Boost

BALTIMORE-Plans for the development of a new central laboratory for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have taken a significant step forward. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has allotted $9.4 million in Maryland’s proposed FY 2007 budget to help facilitate the $150-million project.

The planned 200,000-sf building will be located in the Baltimore suburb of Jessup, replacing the existing lab in Downtown Baltimore. To be operated by the Department of Health’s Laboratories Administration, the new central lab will replace the existing 1960s era property, which has fallen into such disrepair that officials have deemed it more cost-effective to replace than refurbish.

The new locale will provide a high-tech environment for isolating diseases and performing tests. “It will not necessarily be much larger than the existing space, but it will be more efficient and will be state-of-the-art,” DHMH public affairs officer John Hammond tells GlobeSt.com. “It will also be more centrally located in the state.”