Berlin Resident Owns Collapsed Middletown Building

Mike Sokolowski considers himself a lucky man.

The Berlin resident is a father and successful accountant in business with Guilmartin, DiPiro and Sokolowski, LLC's. The company has 18 employees. 

His partner Michael DiPiro has worked there for 27 years. His other partner Teresa Opalacz recently became a partner a year ago and Sokolowski has been with the company 25 years. 

He and DiPiro owned the Main Street building that housed the office. That building and their office all came crashing down to the street below on Wednesday, Feb. 2. 

"Although we have owned a portion of the building for several years we purchased the remaining 50 percent in 2009," Sokolowski said. "We were very proud of our building.  In the last nine months we put in $20,000 of windows on the third floor, and a $25,ooo rubber roof.  We could have repaired the roof for $3,000 but decided to spend the $25,000 as we were going to be here for many years.  This summer we also scraped and painted the building. It really never looked better and we had great tenants."

So this is how the day went for Sokolowski.

"Usually there would be approximately 20 people in the building," he said. "That morning only two were there.  The three stores at street level were closed because of the snowstorm and all our employees were staying home because of the storm and or just coming in later.  The building fell at approximately 10:30 am.  

"In the building was an employee Chris Conley, and my partner Michael DiPiro.  In his second floor office Chris heard noises above in the gym and informed Mike. They both went upstairs, looked up and saw the wooded beams cracking in the middle.  They ran down two flights of stairs knowing no one else was on the second floor, looked in the three store windows to see all closed.  They called 911.  The Fire dept was only two doors away. About five or 10 minutes later as the fire department was putting caution tape up outside the building a fire fighter yelled 'run.'  Several firefighters,  Mike, Chris and Sammy from the restaurant next door ran for their lives as the building collapsed.  They dove out of the way, most into Main Street. Luckily no cars were coming. The entire third floor, about 35 feet had collapsed. Not one person was injured.

As soon as Mike DiPiro got out of the building he called me and told me that the rafters were cracking. When I was pulling out of my driveway minutes later he called to tell me of the collapse. I was stunned." 

Sokolowski said while losing the building was awful, again, he feels lucky. 

"Now all this sounds really bad but that's not how Michael and myself look at it though," he said. "We both feel very lucky. No one was hurt. We had done a backup of our computer system the night before and it was out of the building.  We do have insurance for both the building and business. It appears that the insurance was adequate, we will see if it was enough. It does look like we will be able to retrieve all of our paper files.  Three days after the crash we had secured very nice space in the Middle Oak building in town. Our entire staff is working out of this office already.  The office is up and running.  

"The outpouring of support from the town, fire department, police department, businesses and our client community has been remarkable.  It truly makes you feel good." 

Sokolowski said the building was more than just a home to his work office. 

"We loved that building," he said. "It had many good memories.  The third floor was a full court basketball gym with 30 foot ceilings. Recently we have been renting it out for a small fee to Oddfellows Playhouse to store the costumes. My guess is that 30 years of costumes are gone. For many years, we would play basketball on Tuesday nights with clients, friends and kids from the community.  We have let baseball teams and soccer teams practice up there for many years. We would have had many ping pong games and had a very nice pool table up there.  So many memories."

Sokolowski said the outpouring from the community has been immense.

"The saddest part of this whole thing is that our home has been lost," he added. "Main street was our home. We are in beautiful offices, however our plan is to rebuild our home and get back to our neighbors, clients, and friends on Main Street. We have always supported our community, clients and those in need.  They are all trying to give back. In most cases we don't need the help. It does make you feel good that so many want to help though."