BATON ROUGE - A new $100 million crime lab may be the solution to a backlog of more than 3,000 cases needing to be  processed by state police.

"A lot of the work they do is not just figuring out who the suspect is but figuring out who it isn't," Governor John Bel Edwards said.

On Thursday, officials broke ground for a three-year project. 

"It'll be a functional building, it'll provide for the sophisticated high tech labs it houses," Rick Lipscomb from WHLC Architecture said during a press conference. 

Superintendent Col. Lamar Davis says almost every agency in the state sends evidence to be processed in their lab. There are 200 police agencies in Louisiana. With that many cases, LSP has outgrown their 1980's lab. The current lab is 52,000 sq. ft. and houses 141 employees.

"Despite those challenges, just to give you a glimpse of the work they do, despite those challenges, our lab has taken on over 16,000 new cases just last year," Davis said. 

The new lab will allow them to hire at least 60 new employees, increasing how many cases get processed in a days time. Years ago, DNA took two weeks to process, now it takes 90 minutes.

"We do project bringing in more staff to serve as experts and then from there to help solve more crimes. We're hoping and expecting to reduce the time it takes to solve the crimes," Davis said.

"They're gathering and processing, analyzing, really for most of the agencies in the state, that's why this is so important," Gov. Edwards said.