Community project funding/congressionally directed spending - construction - the philadelphia public health laboratory has requested congressionally directed spending grant funds to support our…

Community project funding/congressionally directed spending - construction - the philadelphia public health laboratory has requested congressionally directed spending grant funds to support our relocation project from 500 south broad street, philadelphia PA 19146 to 1930 south broad street philadelphia PA 19145, constitution health plaza building (CHP). CHP is a multi-purpose medical campus, the city of philadelphia has signed a 29 year lease with CHP to reconstruct a previously used operation room suites into a "state of the art" city local public health laboratory. The funds requested and approved will be utilized to support the capital funds associated with construction costs, IT needs, storage, security, etc. Our current laboratory can only support biosafety level-2 (BSL2) testing and the new laboratory will have a BSL suite which will house four BSL-3 laboratories which allows a safer and better equipped laboratory to manipulate and analyze current and emerging pathogens and viruses. The public health laboratory works closely and performs testing for the division of disease control, tuberculosis control (TB), environmental services, ambulatory health services, air management, division of covid containment, federally qualified health centers (fqhc), outside clients, etc. For uninsured, underinsured and insured clients of philadelphia. Our services are intricate to respond to any current or future outbreaks, epidemics and/or pandemics. The newly constructed facility will improve multiple physical and environmental limitations that we face in our current work facility. Our projected relocation from our current facility to CHP is scheduled for mid-2023.