Crowley Tours New Forensic Science Center

(Left to right) Sup. Shawn Rolland, Chief Medical Examiner Wieslawa Tlomak, Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride, OEM Director Cassandra Libal and Dr. Ben Weston outside of the Center for Forensic Science and Protective Medicine in Wauwatosa. Photo taken May 16 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

As construction nears completion, Milwaukee County officials visited the new the Center for Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Friday morning.

County Executive David Crowley took a walk to the facility, which is the largest county project to date during his time in office. He also used the tour as an opportunity to showcase what the county and the state can achieve when they work together, just a day after making the rounds in Madison pitching state legislators on the county’s massive criminal courthouse project.

The more than $233 million building, located at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center, is a joint project between the State of Wisconsin and Milwaukee County. The four-story, 212,000 square-foot facility will house the county’s Office of Medical Examiner and Office of Emergency Management and the state’s Department of Justice Milwaukee Crime Lab.

The project is already 70% complete, according to Michael Krolczyk, Senior Vice President with C.D. Smith, which is leading construction. In some ways, though, the new facility is long overdue.

The medical examiner’s office is currently located in an undersized, and dilapidated, building at 933 W. Highland Ave. The new facility will provide expanded, purpose-built space that should help the office recruit forensic pathologists. There is a nationwide shortage and the office has struggled with staffing in recent years. The old building, which at times reeks of decomposing bodies, is not selling point for job candidates.

“The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner has been desperately needing new space for many, many years,” Crowley said prior to the tour Friday morning. “I think one of the workers said for 24 years, they’re asking for new space.”

Supervisor Shawn Rolland, who represents Wauwatosa on the county board, said the new facility will finally provide the county’s forensic investigators and pathologists with a facility in line with the importance of their work.

“They’re not for the prosecution, they’re not for the defense, they’re for justice and the truth… They deserve a professional place like this that will attract the next generation of talent,” Rolland said.

The new purpose-built facility will provide the office with an expanded space and new equipment; providing the office with greater capacity and efficiency to handle the nearly 2,000 autopsies it performs each year, said Dr. Wieslawa Tlomak, Chief Medical Examiner. The new location, on the same campus as the Medical College of Wisconsin, will also provide greater training opportunities for the next generation of forensic pathologists.

“Medical students, pathology residents and forensic pathology fellows will get real exposure to forensic pathology and death investigation,” Tlomak said.

The medical college used to have a pathology building not far from where the new facility is being constructed, said Dr. Ben Weston, chief health policy advisor for the county and a professor at the medical college.

“So in many ways, this is a full circle return, and one that certainly honors the past while looking toward the future,” he said.

Another county agency that Weston, as the county’s EMS medical advisor, and Tlomak work closely with, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), is also going to have offices in the new building. OEM monitors and coordinates response to all manners of crisis, including severe weather or mass casualty events.

The county and the state are splitting the costs for the new building. The county is paying approximately $127 million for its portion of the building, using a mix of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, cash and county-issued debt. The county expects the project will come in on or under budget, said Aaron Hertzberg, director of the county’s Department of Administrative Services.

Construction should finish in time for the facility to open in spring 2026, Krolczyk said. Laboratory equipment will start making its way into the building by the end of the year as contractors work on “the complex, comprehensive commissioning of the building,” he said.

Wauwatosa Mayor Dennis McBride noted that the city and Milwaukee County first entered into a partnership in the 19th century, to create the Milwaukee County grounds where the new project is located. “Those days are gone, but our partnership continues,” he said.

Partnership between the county and the state, and the value therein, is an idea Crowley is currently trying to better develop, and sell, at the Capitol. The county executive is working to convince the Republican-controlled Legislature of the importance of the county’s new courthouse project, which he is also pitching as a partnership between the county and the state.

He sees the new forensic science center as proof that a deeper relationship between the county and the state is a good thing.

“These are regional assets,” he said. “It doesn’t just benefit Milwaukee County.”

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