One of Elon University’s student apartment complexes, Park Place at Elon, is at the center of a dispute in which Greensboro-based Samet Corporation is suing a subcontractor and architecture company hired to work on the mixed-use development for allegedly failing to provide services in a way that would have prevented future structural damage to the property.
Samet filed the lawsuit in Alamance County civil superior court against Plageman Architecture in Burlington and Teabo & Sons Stucco in Jacksonville, North Carolina, seeking more than $25,000 damages for alleged breach of contract and additional claims — as well as recovery of more than $2 million, which Samet claims to have spent in 2020 to make structural repairs.
Click here for the court documents.
EDG Properties, the property owner, hired Samet in November 2014 to both design and build Park Place at Elon University located in downtown Elon at 202 W. Haggard Ave. Park Place is a four-story student living facility with retail and restaurant space on the ground floor and 43 apartments on the first, second, third and fourth floors. The university manages the apartments for students.
Plageman and Teabo — the defendant companies — were hired in 2015 and 2016, and by June 2016, according to the lawsuit, “construction on the Project was substantially complete.”
According to the court file, Plageman was hired to provide architectural and consulting services and Teabo for labor, materials and equipment for the exterior.
Samet was notified of discovered water intrusion by the property owner in February 2020 during “due diligence process of a potential sale,” according to the court file.
The water intrusion was caused by “numerous deficiencies in the construction of the Project, particularly relating to the design, labor materials, equipment, and services provided by the Defendants and the failure by the Defendants to perform their work in a reasonably worklike manner … as to prevent reasonably foreseeable damage to the property,” the court file said.
From May 2020 through September 2020, the file said Samet performed necessary repairs to the property, including “roof coping, plywood sheathing, and masonry, in order to remediate the damage caused by the water intrusion.”
Brad Moore, university architect and director of planning, design and construction management, wrote in an email to Elon News Network that the office was not involved in the project and that he did not have any specific details.
Jeffrey D. Keister and Stephen K. Pytlik of McAngus Goudelock & Courie, PLLC are the attorneys for Samet, Kimberly J. Kirk and Kevin Marshall of Johnston, Allison & Hord, P.A. are the attorneys for Teabo and Melissa Dewey Brumback of Ragsdale Liggett PLLC is the attorney for Plageman Architecture, according to the court file.
None of the attorneys responded to Elon News Network’s immediate request for comment.