The Philadelphia Police Department’s new state-of-the-art forensics lab could be operational as early as next year, the culmination of a yearslong planning effort aimed at modernizing how the force solves crimes.
City Treasurer Jacqueline Dunn told a City Council committee on Wednesday that construction began at the University City site in December 2025 and will extend through April.
Dunn explained that timeline during a meeting of Council’s Finance Committee, which unanimously approved a request by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration to authorize the city to issue $40 million in bonds to finance the project. That measure will fund the build-out, construction, and equipment at the lab site, and it is expected to be approved by the full Council as soon as this week.
City officials, police brass, and members of Council have for years described the existing police crime lab in North Philadelphia — where the force processes guns, drugs, DNA, and other evidence — as undersized and outdated.
“This is something the public has been asking us for to really modernize the police operation,” said Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, the Democratic majority leader and the chair of the Finance Committee. “We’re glad that this day is finally here, and that we were able to to work out all the details to make it to this moment.”
The proposed $40 million bond issuance would come in addition to $50 million that had already been secured and set aside in previous annual budgets to pay for the project. A Parker administration spokesperson confirmed that construction of the lab is expected to cost about $90 million total.
City financial records show the Parker administration anticipates to pay about $11.4 million a year in rent once the lab is operational.
The final phase of the construction of the site at 4101 Market St. follows a five-year process that began under former Mayor Jim Kenney.
During an unprecedented spike in gun violence in 2021, Kenney, police officials, and District Attorney Larry Krasner all advocated for the city to spend millions on a new crime lab, saying it would allow police to process evidence at faster rates and solve more crimes. Krasner long argued that his office could secure more convictions if police were able to build stronger cases based on physical evidence.
But getting to the point of construction on a new lab was a process beset by delays. Kenney’s administration had not selected a location by the time he left office in early 2024. After Parker was sworn in, her administration spent months evaluating potential sites amid lobbying efforts by other local and state elected officials who wanted the lab in their districts.
Ultimately, Parker’s administration chose the 4100 block of Market Street, a burgeoning life sciences district where lab space already existed.
In 2025, Parker hailed the selection as “a giant step forward in forensics technology and crime-solving ability for our police department.”
On Wednesday, Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who chairs Council’s Committee on Public Safety and has been among the body’s chief advocates for the new lab, acknowledged it has been a long process.
He said the small size of the existing lab meant “some of the processing of ballistics and other essential tools for justice are delayed.”
“This has been a long, winding, but an essential part of the criminal justice process,” he said.
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