By September 2011, the St. Tammany Coroner’s Office will have all its varied departments under one roof in a state-of-the-art modern, ecologically-friendly forensics center on La. Highway 434 just north of Interstate 12 in Lacombe.

Wednesday morning, St. Tammany Coroner Peter Galvan and other parish officials gathered on a 40-acre plot of empty land to break ground on the center that will house a morgue, DNA and toxicology labs, and administrative offices.

“This is an optimum location,” Galvan said. “It is high ground and centralized, which is more efficient for law enforcement.”

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Currently, the Coroner’s Office is spread out all over the parish. The DNA and toxicology labs are behind the Textron building in Slidell, the morgue is in Covington, and the administrative offices are on Brownswitch Road in Slidell.

“This is a real milestone for law enforcement,” said St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain. He said the Coroner’s Office has come a long way, and remembered when there was only one person working in the office, and the coroner had to be transported by Sheriff’s deputies to an accident or crime scene.

The site of the new forensics center is set among tall pine trees, with no other buildings in sight. This is exactly what Galvan wanted.

“I wanted the building to be integrated with the natural surroundings,” the coroner said. “This is a modern, efficient green building.”

Karl Bernhard, an architect with the firm Sizeler Thompson Brown Architects that designed the center said the building has several environmentally friendly features. First there is lots of windows and natural light in all parts of the 23,200-square-foot, one-story building.

“We know that people work better in natural light,” Bernhard said.

Also, panels, called “green screens,” surround the building. These screens will have confederate jasmine vines growing on them. The screens will be 10 feet high and will shade the building from the heat of sunlight.

“When the sunlight hits the screens, the heat will be diffused,” Bernhard said.

There will also be a large pond in front of the forensics center. Currently, the pond is a big pit that was used for fill dirt when I-12 was being built. Bernhard said the pit would be lined and then filled. All the storm water running off the center’s roof will be directed into the pond.

The building was paid for with two bond sales. The land was bought for $1 million and the second bond sale raised the $8 million to construct the building. The contract for construction was awarded to VCC Construction out of Irving, Texas, with the lowest bid of $7.4 million.

Being centrally located was a big factor for Galvan. He said it would make investigations faster and easier for all the law enforcement agencies in the parish, plus get all the evidence on time to the district attorney’s office.

St. Tammany had one of the first DNA labs in the state, which attracted a lot of law enforcement agencies in the metro area, but having the lab plus other resources in one spot will speed up prosecution said St. Tammany District Attorney Walter Reed.

“Without the DNA lab, it took us 2 to 3 years to get results for a case. This makes a tremendous impact on law enforcement in the parish,” Reed said.

The toxicology lab will make it easier to get blood –alcohol analysis, which was handled by the Louisiana State Police lab in Baton Rouge.

Galvan said that having all that “brain power” under one roof has another advantage for prosecuting criminal cases.

“We will save money, because we won’t have to go out-of-state for expert witnesses. They’ll be here,” Galvan said.”

Besides all the other duties of a coroner’s office, Galvan also wants to focus on getting help for those with mental illness and drug problems. He said he is instituting a program that will get these people to the right facilities where they can get treatment.

The building is planned to be completed by September 2011.