Olean contractor buys former OP union office

The brothers who own a pair of Olean-based contractors have acquired the former Orchard Park offices and training center for the local plumbers union, trading leased space for a building they now own.

Mike and Dan DeRose paid $616,000 a week ago to buy the 16,700-square-foot building at 3651 California Drive from the United Association Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 22’s Property Trust Fund.

The freestanding industrial warehouse – with its new facade, onsite training room and air-filtration system – sits on 2.25 acres near Route 219.

“This sale provides additional evidence of  the relative strength of the local industrial real estate market,” said David Schiller of Pyramid Brokerage Co., who handled the California Drive sale with his son, Ben Schiller. “The sale of the union’s trade school building to a mechanical contractor was very close to a perfect fit.”

Mike DeRose is president of Pierce Steel Fabricators, while his brother, Dan, runs Mazza Mechanical, an HVAC contractor. Both companies have been owned by the DeRose and Mazza family since 1967, and Pierce traces its history back to 1932.

The two companies are based in the same building in Olean, but Mazza also opened an office in Jamestown in July 2004 and in Orchard Park in July 2007.

The union, which needed more space for its training center to expand, previously bought a former Lifetime Health clinic at 120 Gardenville in West Seneca so it can train more skilled workers and welders, Schiller said.