I think the best you can do is to start a new server build right away and run a P2V process on the physical box in parallel, and see if your physical box would be exported successfully as a VM. if yes, then you can then test out the vCenter functionality and if everything is dodgy, consider migrating to the freshly built server. I have no experience with the Virtual Lab manager but my point of view is - why would vCenter not work in a virtualized environment? At least you could try and see if you can save yourself from managing another physical server
Stop by my blog if you'd like 🙂 I dabble in vSphere troubleshooting, PowerCLI scripting and NetApp storage - and I share my journeys at http://vmxp.wordpress.com/