Dreams Die Hard
By Dan Pulcrano

This Column ran in Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper, in September 1995.

Before Ken Williams became a pioneer in the redevelopment of downtown San Jose, he ran with models and sports stars, owned a slice of Los Gatos' hottest restaurant and had a half million dollar home off Highway 9 in Saratoga.

He'd worked his way out of the kitchen and up from wine cellar. By mid-1987, he'd heard all about the coming boom in downtown San Jose. On a sunny Saturday in May of that year, two days after his 36th birthday, a leasing agent for the Pavilion shopping center happened into Steamer's Fish Again and Pasta Too, where the affable restaurateur greeted patrons. I remember that day well, because I provided the fateful introduction.

One thing led to another, and by the end of the year Ken had signed a lease to become the downtown shopping center's first tenant. The center had been struggling to fill its space and in a confidential letter in August 1987, developer Melvin Simon and Associates informed San Jose Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Frank Taylor that the project was no longer viable unless the city renegotiated the subsidy arrangement inked less than a year earlier. Taylor's plan to turn South First Street into the valley's Rodeo Drive had been a market fantasy, and his vision of orchestrating a boom driven by shoppers and conventioneers was already unraveling.

Never mind. The agency and its partners continued to publicly express optimism, and Williams remained committed to pursuing his dream of building a restaurant that would be a centerpiece in the new downtown. Even after Simon delayed plans to build his two-story dining palace alongside a high tech cinema showcase of filmmaker George Lucas, Williams opened Leaf's, a designer salad restaurant, on the second floor of the Pavilion's main building, while waiting for the developers to nail down the cinema lease.

By 1989, it became clear that the plans to develop the cinema and restaurant complex had been shelved. Williams, who had traded his house and his share in Steamer's plus $74,500 he had borrowed from his dad to become the operator of a failing salad bar, retained counsel and filed suit.

The proud, gregarious entrepreneur turned into an unemployed hermit obsessed with the lawsuit. He traded his furniture for a room in a friend's condo, and dug in for the long haul, rejecting Simon's settlement offers. He cried when he talked about his turn of fortune and said he'd kill himself if he lost the case. According to trial testimony, he played golf, slipped into a clinical depression, popped pills and grew suicidal.

When the case came to trial this spring, opposing attorneys did what good cross-examiners do and attacked the credibility of Williams' emotional distress claim, making him look like the victim of a rear-end collision who had gone to see his chiropractor only after getting his lawyer's advice.

Three weeks ago, Judge Conrad Rushing tossed out Williams' claim, ruling that the restaurateur hadn't been damaged by the breached lease because a high priced restaurant in downtown San Jose would have gone south anyway.

A few days later, Ken's roommate returned from a trip and found his body. A hose was hooked up to the tailpipe of his silver Thunderbird. Prescription drugs lay nearby.

Rushing had written that "the plaintiff failed to carry his burden of proof with respect to emotional distress," but he had been favorably impressed by the charismatic Williams nonetheless.

"The court is quite sympathetic to Mr. Williams; he is in many ways the embodiment of the American dream and he represents many of the best aspects of American enterprise," Rushing enthused. "He is hard working and motivated and he is quite capable of formulating the kind of practical dream that could make him a wealthy man. Unfortunately it did not work out in this case but I believe, based on what I know of him from this case, that his chance will come again."

They say you can tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back, but somehow no one expected the ending to play out this way. The actors in this tragic drama-in law, business, public policy and, yes, the media-played their parts as is customary and proper. We all missed the point though.

A redevelopment scheme went haywire, promised events never occurred and a business deal unraveled. That's life in the big city. But too often we forget that business isn't just about money. It's about people and their dreams. And dreams die hard.

© 1995 Dan Pulcrano