“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 establish a business improvement district (BID) that will have a transformative impact on this community. This BID is a defined area within which businesses are required to pay an additional tax in order to fund projects within the district's boundaries.

Think of this additional tax as if it were a homeowner’s association fee and used to provided additional supplemental services: landscaping, holiday decorations, street and sidewalk cleaning and construction, improved streetlights, commercial vacancy reduction, special events, and etc.

Similar BIDs are often funded primarily through this type of levy, but can also draw on other public and private funding streams. The services we will provided by this BID are supplemental to those already provided by the City of Greensboro.

In addition, we will also lead the development of Uptown Greensboro through a number of projects, as a prosperous and vibrant urban community, memorable and meaningful for those who choose to live, work, shop, dine, play, worship, and invest here.

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. 

What We've Achieved