R.S. Gass State Laboratory Replacement Facility

Watson is preparing to support delivery of Tennessee’s new R.S. Gass State Laboratory Replacement Facility in Nashville. The approximately 182,200-square-foot facility will replace the state’s aging Central Laboratory, which was originally constructed in 1950 as a tuberculosis hospital and repurposed as a public-health laboratory during the 1980s. 

Designed as a flexible, resilient center for critical public-health and environmental services, the new laboratory will include BSL-3 containment space, specialized and open laboratories, sample-accessioning areas, training laboratories, classrooms, administrative offices, warehousing, and supporting infrastructure. Its work will support newborn screening, bacteriology, antibiotic-resistance testing, wastewater surveillance, environmental chemistry, aquatic biology, disease surveillance, and responses to biological and chemical threats. 

The modern, adaptable design increases laboratory space by approximately one-third and is intended to improve testing capacity while allowing the facility to respond to changing scientific and operational needs.