WILSON, N.C., Sept. 27, 2022 — Veterinary hospital network Vets Pets today reported it started construction of a state-of-the-art facility in Wilson, North Carolina.
When completed, the 17,000-square-foot home of Points East Veterinary Specialty Hospital (Points East) will replace an existing smaller facility less than a mile away, Vets Pets said.
The project officially kicked off on September 26, 2022, with a ceremonial groundbreaking at the new facility’s Grover Lane location.
Vets Pets said the start of work on the specialty hospital is but only the latest sign that the fast-growing, multifaceted company continues to invest for the long-term in hopes of advancing veterinary care and experience in the communities it serves.
Vets Pets Medical Director Paige Harrington, DVM, predicted the sleek new Points East Veterinary Specialty Hospital will bring greater convenience, comfort, and medical capabilities to pet parents throughout the area.
“We’ll have more of everything here—exceptionally knowledgeable, skilled, compassionate, board-certified personnel plus the region’s most advanced emergency, surgical, critical-care, diagnostic, and therapeutic technologies.” Harrington said.
Points East opened in 2006, started by Frank Batten, DVM, in a 2,500-square-foot industrial complex. At the time, Points East was known as Eastern Carolina Veterinary Emergency Treatment Services (ECVETS).
One year later, Batten and his son-in-law Steve Thomas founded Vets Pets (Thomas today is Vets Pets’ chief executive officer) by combining ECVETS with one other veterinary practice. In 2010, Vets Pets bought and renovated a vacant 5,100-square-foot restaurant at 4935 Raleigh Road Parkway West as the home of ECVETS, which has been located there ever since. That facility underwent renovation in 2015. Specialty surgery services were added, and Points East was born.
In 2019, Vets Pets again renovated the facility, this time introducing 24/7/365 emergency and critical-care services. Those and all other offered services were rebranded under the Points East name. Its Wilson location near the intersection of I-95 and U.S. Hwy. 264 placed it in the middle of a vast, largely underserved region stretching eastward from Raleigh’s Triangle Area to the Carolina coast.
“At its inception, ECVETS was the only veterinary hospital of its kind in the region, and with a consistent focus on growth and advancement, Points East remains so today,” said Thomas. Harrington—who serves additionally as the hospital’s medical director—said moving to the larger facility was an idea that had been in the works for some time.
“We knew we were going to need a larger place if we were to keep pace with the surging demand for our services and to be able to continue accepting the growing variety of cases being brought to us,” she explained. “The new, much larger, and better-equipped facility will help us do both.”
“Soon after converting to a 24-hour specialty hospital, we started to feel space constrained,” Thomas said. “We then started to plan for this new facility on a nearby site we purchased for this purpose 15 years ago in hopes we would one day recognize this dream and potential.”
For more information or to schedule an interview with Vets Pets CEO Steve Thomas or Medical Director Paige Harrington, please contact Matt Mumpower by email at mattmumpower@thevetspets.com or by phone at (252) 237-1375.
About Vets Pets
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Wilson, North Carolina, Vets Pets is a cooperative network of veterinary hospitals located throughout the Tar Heel State. Vets Pets provides hands-on full-service management support to its member and partner veterinarians and their teams so they can better focus on achieving medical and service excellence within a supportive and healthy hospital culture. Nearly all of Vets Pets hospitals are anchored by first-generation veterinary owners who choose to partner with Vets Pets to pursue their dreams of ownership with a proven and trusted management partner standing with them.