The Winston-Salem police department now has extra space in a new building that opened a year ago. The former Thomasville Furniture plant has been renovated to house space for the Police Department’s Forensic Services Division and Evidence Management and Fire Department Training. The existing structure required careful planning on CLD’s part to support the needs of the forensic laboratories.
The firearms lab include a bullet recovery tank, which weighs roughly 8,000 pounds, and the firing range, which includes special construction to contain rounds within the space. The existing structure of the floor was found to be much weaker than initially believed, so CLD had to design special infrastructure to support these spaces.
For the bullet recovery tank, CLD included steel support beams laid lengthwise along the floor which the tank rests on. This distributes the weight of the tank on the building’s structural system, rather than the floor. The firing range walls include lighter weight, but thicker, ballistic fiberglass backed with steel.
The building, known as the Beaty Center, has 60,000 square feet. About 30,000 square feet is reserved for evidence storage, which Winston-Salem PD and the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department now share to store their evidence and found property.
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
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