Austin's forensic evidence system is running out of room, and the fix that was supposed to solve the problem is stuck. The Austin City Council advanced a lease of up to five years and $3.35 million for 44,000 square feet at 4405 Springdale Road on August 27, a stopgap measure meant to buy time while the city's long-planned $32.2 million Public Safety Warehouse sits unfinished with no completion date in sight.
The warehouse, located at 11708 McAngus Road, Bldg. 4, in Southeast Austin, was supposed to be the answer. As reported by Community Impact, the city budgeted roughly $46 million in 2024 to buy the more than 14-acre property, with council authorizing a $78.5 million capital budget amendment that May to acquire and renovate the 239,315-square-foot facility for co-located public safety agencies, according to City of Austin records. The property was purchased through the Austin Public Facilities Corporation using tax-exempt general obligation bonds.
But the build-out has stalled. The warehouse has a leaky roof warranty claim issue that surfaced in February, and the city is still assessing subsurface conditions across the property this year, per the same Community Impact report. So far, just over $2 million of the warehouse budget has been spent on design, permitting and electrical equipment, an Austin financial services spokesperson said, and the city has no expected timeline for finishing the project.
Why the Emergency Lease Was Needed
With the warehouse in limbo, forensics evidence control is nearing capacity at two other city facilities, and city staff reported that Austin Forensic Science currently has no other viable storage options. The Springdale Road site sits adjacent to the existing 50,000-square-foot evidence warehouse at 4708 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, a proximity officials say would reduce time spent shuttling inventory between buildings and enhance evidence safety, security and integrity.
The 44,026-square-foot space will be leased from Richard Springdale LLC, a North Hollywood, California-based company, with lease terms backed by a third-party appraisal. Forensics evidence control will move into the new Springdale space only after safety and security upgrades are completed there.
The Bill Nobody's Budgeted Yet
The interim lease requires $52,387 from the Austin Forensic Science Department's fiscal year 2025-2026 operating budget, which runs through September, according to city council documentation. But that's just the opening payment. The city could pay between $628,649 and $714,105 annually for the Springdale Road facility through August 2031, and Austin has not yet identified the required $628,649 needed in the fiscal year 2026-27 budget.
The lease includes a five-year extension option, and the remaining balance through 2031 depends on future council budget approvals that haven't happened yet. That leaves an open question hanging over the city's books even as the emergency space addresses overcrowding and staffing shortages tied to disposing of eligible evidence items.
Why Storage Keeps Filling Up
Part of the pressure comes from state law itself. Under Article 38.43 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, public entities must preserve biological evidence collected in felony cases for at least 40 years or until a defendant completes their sentence or is executed, according to Justia Law. Article 38.50 separately mandates that toxicological evidence, like blood and urine specimens from intoxication investigations, be retained for at least two years or the length of the applicable statute of limitations, per FindLaw. Disposal requires specific judicial authorization or statutory expiration, meaning the volume of physical evidence Austin must store only grows over time.
The Public Safety Warehouse was designed to support Austin Police, Austin Fire, Austin/Travis County Emergency Medical Services, Austin Forensic Science, and Austin Emergency Management under one roof, with Balfour Beatty engaged in 2025 as general contractor to manage design and construction finish-outs for office space, emergency supplies, and secured evidence storage. Austin created the Public Facilities Corporation in 2023 under the Texas Public Facilities Corporation Act specifically to finance and own projects like this one.
A Track Record of Storage Trouble
This isn't the first sign of strain on Austin's evidence infrastructure. Texas Forensic Science Commission meeting minutes show Austin forensic officials filed a self-disclosure in October after a central evidence locker refrigerator malfunctioned and overheated beyond acceptable storage temperature limits, a failure tied to a breakdown in digital notification protocols meant to alert off-duty staff. And Hoodline reported in July that mold in an air-conditioning unit at Austin Police Department headquarters forced staff evacuations, echoing a 2017 incident in which mold in APD storage compromised more than 800 untested sexual assault evidence kits.
The governance of evidence itself shifted years ago: Austin Forensic Science was created as an independent city department separate from APD in 2021, placing evidence control under civilian forensic leadership appointed in October 2022. Austin isn't alone in outgrowing its evidence footprint, either — the neighboring Travis County Sheriff's Office opened new forensic facility at its correctional complex after outgrowing a cramped command building that had required three supplemental add-on warehouses.
For now, Austin's answer to its evidence storage crunch is a five-year commitment next door to an existing warehouse, agreed to by city officials while the larger McAngus Road project remains without a finish date. The open costs beyond this fiscal year, and the unresolved roof and subsurface issues at the flagship warehouse, leave the city's long-term evidence storage plan very much unsettled.
