Former Graham mayor Jennifer Talley and her husband, Chuck Talley, who own several real estate development companies based in Graham, have prevailed in a two-year-old civil suit over an alleged encroachment onto property that two competing developers own along North Marshall Street, at the edge of the city’s downtown business district.
The Talleys were named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Alamance County civil superior court in September 2024, which alleged that the Talleys had installed a private stormwater line on property along North Marshall Street that is owned by 106 North, LLC.
The plaintiff, 106 North, LLC, claimed in its suit against the former mayor and her husband that the alleged encroachment had caused construction on a long-planned mixed-use project to stall, creating the need to modify its plans and incur additional expenses to remove the private stormwater line.
Local builder and former Graham city councilman Lee Kimrey is a partner in 106 North, LLC with Jason Cox, another developer who, like the Talleys, owns multiple commercial properties in downtown Graham, according to Kimrey and annual reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office.
Visiting superior court judge Sean Cole of Wake County entered an order last Friday granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss the suit after concluding that there was “no genuine issue as to material fact,” meaning that the defendants were entitled to dismissal. Cole heard arguments from both the plaintiffs and defendants in Alamance County superior court earlier that week.
The plaintiff, 106 North, LLC, had sought to continue the case, after “two material witnesses to the issue,” Franz Holt and Michael Holt, failed to respond to requests for affidavits. The plaintiff had sought to depose both men between late July and early August, according to the court file.
Kimrey had said in an earlier interview with The Alamance News that he’d planned to build a three-story mixed-use development, named 106 North, that would have four commercial storefronts on the ground floor and 48 one-bedroom apartments.
The existing zoning designation, B-1/central business district, allows for multiuse buildings with a residential component on the second floor or higher, eliminating the need to secure additional approval by Graham’s planning board and/or city council before the project could proceed, Kimrey had said.
However, the plaintiff, 106 North LLC, alleged in the subsequent suit that the defendants had installed a private stormwater line to drain all runoff from their property, across the property at 106 North Marshall Street and into a public stormwater drain line along North Marshall Street, which prevented the plaintiff from the developing the property as planned.
The property at 106 North Marshall Street is adjacent to the Graham Amphitheater, a live performance venue and parking area owned by the defendants, according to the suit that 106 North, LLC filed in 2024 against the Talleys.
106 North LLC alleged that the defendants had trespassed onto its property, removed dirt, and installed the private stormwater line without permission, disrupting the natural flow of water and causing ongoing damage to the site, the suit asserted.
The alleged encroachment onto the property owned by 106 North, LLC (two lots at 106 and 108 North Marshall Street) was discovered around October 20, 2022, according to the plaintiff’s motion to continue. Prior to that time, the plaintiff company believed that the stormwater line was located within the boundaries of a neighboring property at 104 North Marshall Street that is owned by Michael Holt.
The plaintiff company sought more than $25,000 in damages incurred as a result of the defendants’ alleged “creation of a nuisance” that has interfered with the plans to develop the property.
The defendants argued that the plaintiff had not established any substantial damage resulting from stormwater runoff and that the company’s own representatives had previously testified that there are no issues with standing water on the property at 106 North Marshall Street, indicating that the stormwater drain is functioning as intended. “Absent the stormwater drain, [the] plaintiff would be responsible for developing its own stormwater management plan to address runoff on its property,” the defendants asserted in the motion that Cole granted last week.
The defendants also contended that they couldn’t be held liable for an alleged trespass – i.e., coming onto the property to repair the private stormwater line – that occurred long before the plaintiff purchased the property.
Chuck Talley admitted that he had completed repairs to an existing private stormwater line in 2004 or 2005, 15 years before 106 North, LLC acquired the property, based on an amended response to the suit that the defendants filed in late June 2025. The defendants also admitted that the private drain line connects to a storm drain at 126 East Elm Street and to a public stormwater drain along North Marshall Street.
The Talleys estimated that the private stormwater drain had been installed before 1970; that “there is no record evidence to refute the Talleys’ estimate; and that when they purchased the property in 2005, they gained the right to use the stormwater drain that came with it, according to a motion for summary judgment they filed late last month, asking a superior court judge to dismiss the suit.
“Although defendant William [Chuck] Talley paved his parking lot and installed a catch basin at the time he made repairs in 2006/2007, the topography of the land has not changed, and no water flow has increased as result of the paving to his own property,” the defendants stated in their motion for summary judgment. “There is no evidence that [the] defendants relocated the pipe, changed its point of discharge, expanded its capacity, or otherwise materially increased the burden on [the] plaintiff’s property.”
Earlier dispute leads to misdemeanor charge that D.A.’s office dropped
Chuck Talley had been previously charged with misdemeanor injury to real property by the Graham police department in July 2024 after Cox filed a complaint when he removed a plastic bollard from the alley between 103 and 109 North Main Street. The plastic bollard had been erected in the alleyway in advance of Cox’s plan to install an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) machine along one of the exterior walls that face the alleyway.
Chuck Talley later told The Alamance News that he’d removed the bollard so one of his tenants could get to the back of her property but said he’d notified Cox’s property manager before doing so.
An Alamance County assistant district attorney voluntarily dismissed the charge late in March 2025 after her review of the evidence – namely, a survey showing that no one owns the alleyway at the center of the case, or a “prescriptive easement” – showed there was no way to proceed, according to Graham attorney Robert Jennings, who represented Chuck Talley for the case.
Kimrey purchased the Marshall Street property – which consists of two adjoining lots that span about a third of an acre – through his company, Lee Kimrey Construction, in September 2019 for $170,000. The property had two one-story houses that dated back to the 1930s and had been used as rental properties by the previous owner.
Contacted Tuesday by The Alamance News, Kimrey declined to comment, citing “the advice of counsel” and instructing the newspaper to direct any additional inquiries to his attorney.
106 North LLC was represented by the Isaacson Sheridan law firm in Greensboro.
The Talleys were represented by the Brown, Crump & Tierney law firm in Raleigh.
