Mayo opens new lab center on Rochester outskirts

Mayo Clinic is opening a new clinical laboratory center on the outskirts of Rochester.

The expansion adds 50,000 square feet of clinical lab space to Mayo's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology.

Four existing labs downtown will relocate to the new facility.

Matt Binnicker, chair of the Facilities and Space Committee in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, said the shift provides room to grow for other clinical laboratories on the Mayo campus.

"The labs that are staying on the downtown Rochester campus are also in need of additional space," he said. "So we're freeing up about 25,000 square feet of space on the downtown Rochester campus."

Binnicker said the expansion cost about $20 million. He said it'll take about six months to relocate equipment, as well as 170 lab employees.

"Whenever you move a piece of laboratory equipment, you're required by regulatory agencies to basically prove ... that test is performing the same in the new site as it was in the old site," he said.

Mayo's labs provide services in testing and pathology to more than 4,000 health care organizations around the world.