“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Our Mission
Uptown GSO, Inc. (UGI) is an economic development 501(c)(3) organization focused on stimulating investment activity in the “northeastern section” of Greensboro, N.C. As a nonprofit entity, our mission is to recognize and establish transformative and impactful projects that will make the community more prosperous and desirable, by unifying our neighborhoods, and implement positive public health strategies, incremental change, and economic growth that creates a sense of pride in where we live, work, shop, dine, play, worship, and invest. We do so by providing leadership and service in advancing the arts as an additional powerful vehicle to attract local audiences and tourism, spur artist and business development, support local jobs, and generate government revenue.
“DESIGNING A DREAM CITY IS EASY; REBUILDING A LIVING ONE TAKES IMAGINATION!”
“I’ve come to the somewhat bias conclusion that we are on the doorsteps of engineering a great community…”
— Joseph A. Wilkerson III
Our FOUNDER - Joseph A. Wilkerson iii
Joseph A. Wilkerson III fell in love with the field of architectural engineering when he attended North Carolina A&T State University in 1988. He wanted to design houses, restaurants, high rise apartment buildings, theaters, and so on. Ironically to this day, he still has a passion to do so, 30 years later.
Wilkerson started working at UPS in 1990 and is still employed with the company as a feeder driver. In 2003, he created North Carolina’s first urban-themed film festival called, the Urban Literary Film Festival. He started a newspaper magazine called, Urban Literature, shortly thereafter. In addition, he create a hip hop event for local music producers, designed an app for authors who wanted to turn their books into films, and eventually he started to publish novellas.
In 2011, Wilkerson opened a 6,000 square foot working artist studio and gallery called, Uptown Artworks in now what he references as, Uptown Greensboro. He also opened an art bar approximately beside the gallery, and then went on to open another space called, Artworks Uptown that focused primarily on special events for the art community.
Since 2006, Wilkerson has been passionate about revitalizing Uptown Greensboro as a destination for people to love where they work and live with their families.
For anyone interested in learning more about Wilkerson’s plans for Uptown Greensboro, please email him at info@uptowngso.org.