Whether you like – or dislike – poetry, the announcement about Research Triangle Park’s next big step in rebooting for the future does contain insight into the importance of today’s news:

Calling all makers, thinkers, doers and dreamers:
this one’s for you, the never-disbelievers.
On February third, it’s going to be a big day;
— please come on out, if you can find a way.

At 11:00, visit Research Triangle Park headquarters
Bring along your friends, bosses and co-workers.
There’ll be cookies and coffee; hope and good cheer.
As we announce a surprise & make our plans clear.

Let’s be candid for a moment when talking about RTP and its technology/life science cluster.

There’s one straw that stirs the drink – Research Triangle Park.

The Park has been the engine for this area’s economic development for the past 50 years. And the next stage of the strategic plan being unveiled today is crucial to bringing more attention, more companies and especially more jobs.

Talk about startup hubs and incubators is fine, but let’s keep some perspective here. Without a reinvigorated Park, the Triangle will have one big hole in the doughnut.

Yes, Raleigh Downtown is roaring right now.

Durham has become startup heaven.

But where are the biggest employers – by far?

Where is there open space to grow?

What reputation this region has around the world can be summed up in three letters:

R

T

P

And the future of that Park is in the hands of Bob Geolas, who is promising big news at this announcement.

In November 2012, the governing Research Triangle Park Foundation unveiled a new strategic plan and brought in real estate development firm Hines as its private sector partner.

From the start, the Foundation called for a “Mixed Use Center” – or the “Triangle Commons” – that would be built on the northeast portion of the 7,000 acre park. Hines and the Foundation will provide funding, Geolas said at the time.

Perhaps that is the announcement for today.

The mixed use project was said to include town homes and apartments, part of an effort to provide a more “urban” environment as well as affordable housing for the Park.

The plan described the Commons as a “cluster” that would provide “the greatest range of amenities and uses to support research and creates a new sense of a heart for the Park.

The leaders know how important the project is. They have said the region must “re-invent” North Carolina’s “cradle of innovation” over the next 50 years because the current model “is not strategically sustainable.”

Today is the next step in making sure the Park is strategically sustainable.

The Park remains the straw that stirs the drink.