Oregon State Police plans $71.6 million forensic lab in Eugene
A $71.6 million state forensic lab on Chad Drive would replace Springfield’s smaller site with a 68,000-square-foot center for evidence, autopsies and death certification.
Oregon State Police is moving forward with a new forensic laboratory and medical examiner facility at 3300 Chad Drive in Eugene, a project that would replace the agency’s smaller Springfield site and pull more of Lane County’s back-end criminal justice work into one purpose-built building.
The state estimates the design-and-construction budget at $71.6 million, separate from the $3.79 million OSP paid for the 6.5-acre parcel in 2023. Construction is expected to begin in March 2027, with completion projected for January 2029. The building is planned to add about 68,000 square feet of space, up from earlier concepts that called for a roughly 44,000-plus-square-foot lab and medical examiner office.
OSP’s Forensic Services Division is Oregon’s only full-service forensic laboratory system and the sole provider for most forensic science services. Its Medical Examiner Division has responsibility for county offices in all 36 Oregon counties, and the Chad Drive facility would sit in the middle of a system that handles evidence testing, autopsies, morgue work and death certification for Lane County and the broader Central Willamette Valley region.
OSP’s current laboratory network is spread across Bend, Central Point, Clackamas, Pendleton and Springfield, and the new Chad Drive building would replace the Springfield location as the agency’s Lane County hub.
OSP entered into a purchase-and-sale agreement for the Chad Drive property on December 14, 2022. The parcel is described as 6.5 acres total, with 5.0 acres developable, and the intended use is a Crime Lab/Medical Examiner’s Office. OSP facility-planning documents also identify the new Eugene property and a former Gateway facility from the Oregon Department of Transportation as the sites for its new area command center, part of a broader reorganization in the Eugene-Springfield area.
OSP first looked for a single site for all regional needs but could not find one that met security, freeway-access and wellhead-protection requirements. The area command center needed to be about 90 seconds from a freeway on-ramp, and some parcels could not satisfy the medical examiner and crime lab requirements because of wellhead protections.
OSP says its forensic laboratory system is accredited by ANAB to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and ANAB AR 3125 standards.
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