BELLEVILLE — Construction on the new police crime lab will resume this week after contractors worked out a method to connect structural steel to meet seismic safety standards, which caused a delay in the work.

The Illinois State Police Metro-East Forensic Science Laboratory project is expected to be completed by October 2013, Illinois Capital Development Board spokesman Dave Blanchette said. The initial deadline was June 2013.

"We're going to have crews make up for lost time with overtime and working on Saturdays so we should be pretty close to the original end date," Blanchette said.

Blanchette could not immediately provide an estimate for overtime costs. Blanchette said the cost of the delay will be absorbed by the two firms responsible for the delay: general contractor Contegra Construction Co. and architect and engineer firm Harley Ellis Devereaux.

Crews stopped working on the $37.8 million project about four to five weeks ago, Blanchette said.

"What happened was there arose a question about how the connection should be made on the structural steel, which wasn't anticipated in the initial plans," Blanchette said.

The steel could not be produced until contractors agreed on how the steel should be connected to resist a certain level of earthquake, Blanchette said.

The metro-east is affected by two major seismic zones -- the New Madrid Seismic Zone and the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone.

"It was part of the design, yes, but sometimes you get on a job site and you realize things on paper don't necessarily match up with what needs to be done," Blanchette said. "That's why you have engineers and contractor be in constant communication with each other."

Blanchette said the steel is being produced and some of it is already on site, so the work should resume after Labor Day. Construction started in December.

The 64,100-square-foot facility is at West Main and 23rd streets next to Lindenwood University. The state purchased the land from Lindenwood. The lab will be equipped to do testing for crime scene services, trace and drug chemistry, polygraph, latent prints, firearms, forensic biology and DNA.

The new lab is funded by Gov. Pat Quinn's Illinois Jobs Now! capital construction program.

Contact reporter Jacqueline Lee at jlee@bnd.com or 239-2655. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/BNDBelleville.