Southern Minnesota will get its own regional crime lab

After years of planning, and even longer lobbying from local law enforcement, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is set to build a new regional crime lab in southern Minnesota.

The BCA came out as one of the big winners in this year’s bonding bill at the Minnesota Legislature. Minnesota borrows money, or bonds, to pay for public infrastructure projects — in this case lawmakers approved $67 million in bonding dollars for a regional lab in Mankato.

The lab is celebrated by public safety officials and lawmakers alike, but it also underscores a burgeoning need for more sophisticated tools to combat evolving crime in Minnesota.

“Our partners have a closer location to drop off evidence, to connect and to get the services they utilize with the BCA,” BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said.

The new 56,000-square-foot facility is expected to go up just north of the Blue Earth County Justice Center on the east side of Mankato.

It will house about 50 agents once it’s up and running, featuring everything from DNA evidence testing to a digital crime lab, the first time the BCA has specifically designed rather than retrofitted space for cyber crimes, according to Evans.

The lab will also have training areas for city and county law enforcement as well as potential space for financial crimes investigators in the future, he said.

“The complexity of crime continues to be a challenge for us across the board in law enforcement,” he said. “That’s why you bring in some of these specialties to assist our partners so they don’t have to be experts in everything.”

If all goes well, the lab will be complete by the end of 2026.

The new building is expected to reduce drive time for local law enforcement and could even result in taxpayer savings. Freeborn County Sheriff Ryan Shea said his department often had to rent hotel rooms when they trained in St. Paul, but a closer BCA lab would eliminate that expense.

“It’s a time-saver for us,” Shea said, highlighting quicker turnarounds in investigations for southern Minnesota police.

BCA officials have wanted to expand into southern Minnesota for years to help address increasing needs for evidence testing, cyber crime investigations and financial forensics, among other issues.

Though the BCA also has 13 field offices, the agency is struggling to get enough space to address those needs. Evans pointed out the BCA’s current headquarters in St. Paul is largely overcapacity, as is the Bemidji regional lab opened in 2001.

State officials put together a proposal in 2020 to build in Mankato because the city is easily accessible along Hwys. 14 and 169. But the project took five years as the Legislature tussled in recent sessions over bonding bills.

DFL Assistant Majority Leader Nick Frentz carried the proposal in the Minnesota Senate. It was among the few local projects included in this year’s $700 million bonding bill.

Frentz noted that public safety advocates and victims rights groups came together at the last minute to help prioritize the project.

“It’s a significant success for southern Minnesota,” he said.

Lawmakers didn’t fully fund the BCA’s request this year — the agency asked for $74 million — but Evans said the agency expects to cut from the building design and make up a $1.6 million shortfall by reallocating its budget.

That doesn’t solve all of the BCA’s space issues, however. State officials are considering a $45 million project to double the Bemidji lab’s space as well.

“This is one of those services that I hope Minnesotans never have to be part of in their lives,” Evans said. “But it’s the only place to get some of these services across the state, which is why we need to continue to fund them.”