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It was the most important San Jose development decision in decades: a state-of-the-art, 688-acre office park that would serve as world headquarters for Silicon Valley telecommunications giant Cisco Systems and produce millions ofdollars of tax revenues annually for the city.
But that was last year. Before the dot-coms imploded. Before tens of thousands of hightech workers were let go. And before hightech companies like Cisco were forced to scrap bullish expansion plans.
In late October, a year almost to the day of the historic city council vote to approve the Cisco campus in Coyote Valley-Silicon Valley's last wide-open swath of industrial land-the company announced that it was scaling back. Instead of space for 20,000 new workers, the company would buy enough land for 3,000 to 9,000 employees. And even then there was no guarantee: Company officials said they would proceed only if...