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Hillsborough Medical Examiner's Office Moving To New Digs

Tribune photo by JULIE BUSCH

Part of the toxicology lab at the new Hillsborough County Medical Examiner in Temple Terrace.

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By JOSH POLTILOVE | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 24, 2008

Updated: 09/24/2008 12:06 pm

TAMPA - The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office is taking a lot more than boxes and files when it moves from downtown Tampa to its new location.

It also will take corpses, X-ray equipment, toxicology testing instruments and unidentified human remains.

"We will continue doing death investigations without any expected interruption," said Dick Bailey, operations manager for the office.

New furniture already is in the new building, near the University of South Florida, and files will be moved Monday. The medical examiner's office hopes to begin doing business – including autopsies – in the new location Oct. 1, with bodies transferred shortly thereafter from the old building.

The office's staff of about 35 won't increase in the move.

The office performs about 1,500 autopsies a year, and about 2,000 bodies move through the office each year.

The move from 401 S. Morgan St. won't affect any Tampa Police Department or Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office investigations, spokespeople for those agencies say.

There's no firm date on when unidentified human remains will be transferred between buildings. The office's unclaimed bodies section, which operates on North Tampa Street because of a space crunch at the Morgan Street location, also is packing for the move, Bailey said.

The current medical examiner's office, built in 1977, is about 8,000 square feet. It has space for 40 to 42 bodies, Bailey said. That's not enough room in the event of "a mass fatality incident," he said. There also is a refrigerated trailer parked next to the building that has space for about 20 bodies.

Bailey said there isn't a proper place for families, funeral directors, law enforcement or reporters who frequent the building.

The move also is supposed to help in case a hurricane comes through.

When Hurricane Charley was barreling into Florida south of Tampa in 2004, Hillsborough County's morgue was right in the middle of an expected flood zone.

The office packed for an emergency move to Blount Curry & Roel funeral home in Tampa. The office planned to take everything -- from files to corpses, to protect them from the storm. But Charley changed course, and it turned out it wasn't necessary to move bodies.

The new building, which has been in the works since the 1990s, cost about $13 million, Bailey said. The 31,500-square-foot building is at 11025 N. 46th St.

It is on higher ground and won't get flooded or damaged should a hurricane strike, Bailey said. It has the capacity for 150 to 160 bodies, he said.

Bailey said the new building is a major improvement, something that has been necessary for a long time.

"We do well because of good people, not because we have a good facility," he said. "But we're about to be doing well because we have both."

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at jpoltilove@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7691.

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