This week, two North Carolina entrepreneurs launched their first urgent care facility in Fuquay-Varina, one of many the pair hope to bring to the Triangle in years to come.
On Wednesday, longtime friends Aaron Fields and Aaron Zucker opened AFC Fuquay-Varina at the site of a former KFC.
The urgent care is situated at 1298 N. Main Street in Fuquay-Varina at a heavily trafficked intersection between several large retail centers. AFC Fuquay LLC bought the land last year for $1.2 million. The new location is an American Family Care facility.
Fields, of Raleigh, and Zucker, of Charlotte, have been friends since they were 15 and have been entrepreneurs for years. Zucker started out buying a bar with some friends while he was in college at the University of Alabama and then got into commercial real estate, ultimately focusing on value-add retail properties with his firm Zucker Investment Group. Fields is vice president of operations at the his families’ business, A&B Store Fixtures of Raleigh.
This is their first time starting a health care business.
“We are obsessed with helping as many people as quickly and safely as possible,” Zucker said. “Now, with the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis, our services are needed more than ever before. The incredible people of Fuquay-Varina and southern Wake County have been so receptive to our arrival and they deserve nothing but the best.”
The facility offers rapid Covid-19 tests promising same day turnaround with a 97 percent accuracy.
“This is a game changer for people who live in this area,” Fields said. “The rapid Covid-19 test we’re offering is a powerful tool that could help slow the spread of the coronavirus.”
The test, using a device called the Sofia 2, takes just 15 minutes to return a result, Fields said.
To lead the medical operations, Zucker and Fields brought on United States Air Force flight surgeon Dr. John Carmack as medical director.
“The entire team at AFC Fuquay-Varina is looking forward to becoming the go-to health care destination for busy local families,” Dr. Carmack said.
Currently, the location employs 15 people with plans calling for staff to be hired.
Zucker and Fields said they are already considering locations for their next facility in the Triangle.
“We’re already looking at plans to expand throughout Wake County and comparable neighborhoods and markets to Fuquay-Varina,” Zucker said. “We have an appetite to help people in the fast growing markets.”
He said the company is also considering an expansion into Johnston and Chatham Counties.
