Chet Holifield Federal Building, Laguna Niguel
Aerial view looking west, c. 1971.
Chet Holifield Federal Building (1971)
24000 Avila Road, Laguna Niguel
William L. Pereira Associates, architects
The great ziggurat that rises above Laguna Niguel's Aliso Creek valley has been an unmistakable landmark since opening in 1971 as North American Rockwell’s Autonetics headquarters. Now known as the Chet Holifield Federal Building (after the area’s former congressman), it was designed by architect and planner William Pereira.
Because it opened just as a major contract fell through, Rockwell found it did not need the 1 million square feet building and traded it in 1974 to the General Services Administration (GSA). The Federal Government has used it to house several agencies, including the Immigration Services Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Archives Annex. It has also been featured in several movies, including Coma (1978), Deal of the Century (1983), and Outbreak (1995).
Now the GSA is seeking to sell the 92-acre property. Preserve Orange County is working with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to advocate for its preservation and adaptive reuse. Because it is federally-owned and historic, the Holifield building is subject to environmental review based on Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.
ADVOCACY UPDATE
June 30, 2026
The General Services Administration (GSA) selected CBRE to market the Chet Holifield Federal Building (CHFB) and seek competitive offers from prospective bidders starting in February 2026. Consequently, GSA reviewed sealed bids on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, accepted the high bid, confirmed Laguna Ridge Healthcare Development, LLC as the purchaser, and is under contract to convey the property by June 30, 2026. Laguna Ridge Healthcare Development, LLC has confirmed with GSA that they will not execute a Conservation and Preservation Easement for the CHFB property.
Mitigation Fund: Laguna Ridge Healthcare Development, LLC has selected the Orange County Community Foundation (OCCF) as the Administrative Entity that will administer the mitigation fund. GSA has confirmed that the OCCF meets the requirements agreed to by parties to the Section 106 review, including the State Historic Preservation Officer, Preserve Orange County and National Trust. GSA has authorized Laguna Ridge Healthcare Development, LLC to transfer $2,000,000 into an escrow account concurrent with and as part of the sale transaction. GSA has authorized the escrow agent through escrow instructions to transfer the funds to OCCF for the Mitigation Fund by June 30, 2026. Since Laguna Ridge Healthcare Development, LLC identified a compliant Administrative Entity prior to closing, GSA has waived the $1,000,000 performance deposit per the agreement.
Donation of Historic Materials to a Public Repository: GSA has identified the Laguna Niguel Historical Society (LNHS) as the public repository for the following materials. The LNHS has expressed its willingness to accept these materials:
Products of the Community Design Charrette for the Chet Holifield Federal Building, including the final report, associated digital files, fly-through schematics, project video, and associated photographs
The existing scale model of the CHFB
The collection of original design and construction drawings currently held by GSA
GSA considers the LNHS a suitable repository that will ensure public access to and appropriate use of these materials for future research and appreciation. The LNHS is currently collaborating with the City of Laguna Niguel to secure an off-site location for the building model. The model is being conveyed to the Laguna Niguel Historical Society as a condition of the sale of the property. GSA will produce interpretive information to accompany the model. GSA will notify the State Historic Preservation Office and consulting parties upon completion of the transfer process in the annual report.
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS): GSA contracted Griffin Enright Architects and Architectural Resources Group to complete the HABS Level II documentation. The HABS documentation work is complete and GSA is making archival, digital, and/or bound library-quality copies of the documentation available to the Orange County Historical Society. GSA will notify the SHPO that the documentation and distribution is complete in the annual report.
May 31, 2025
Under weaker stipulations for protecting the building (see below), a second auction was launched in July 2024 and closed in November with the winning bid of $177 million from local investor Pintar Investments and Hilco Development Services. But legal action on the part of the runner up, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, prompted the GSA to cancel the purchase and award the property to Hoag. The latter decision was recently reversed and, so far, the GSA has not announced its next step. Preserve Orange County continues to advocate for the adaptive reuse of the Holifield building in consultation with interested stakeholders.
The GSA recently released a virtual tour of Holifield, designed by CyArk and featuring our very own, Alan Hess. You can find the tour on our website here.
September 19, 2024
The public auction to sell the building and property that was launched at the end of 2022 by owner, General Services Administration, didn’t yield any bids. In preparation for a second auction in 2024, the GSA removed the requirement for a conservation easement, making preservation of the historic building optional for the buyer. In response to concerns raised by the consulting parties to the federal environmental review of the sale (Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act) that a voluntary easement would lead to demolition of the building, a condition was added to the sale that would require the buyer to contribute $2,000,000.00 to an historic preservation fund as a mitigation measure to be administered by a non-profit organization. The GSA also committed to documenting and interpreting the building. (Click on the Memorandum below for details.) The GSA launched a second public auction in 2024 which closes on September 20, 2024.
Memorandum Agreement - Easement or Mitigation Fund
September 2021- 2023
In 2021 and 2022, the GSA arranged a design charrette that generated ideas from the architecture community and the general public for the productive reuse of the building. You can find the report by clicking here.
The outcome of the federal environmental review was that the Holifield building would be sold with the requirement that a conservation easement would be arranged by the new buyer. The easement is a tax vehicle that functions like a charitable deduction and would ultimately facilitate the protection of the building’s exterior form and materials and those “character defining elements” (see below) that make it historic. An auction to sell the building was begun in early 2023.
Not only is the Holifield Building a rare surviving landmark of the space exploration and defense industries that fueled Southern California’s growth through most of the twentieth century, it is an excellent candidate for an adaptive reuse solution. Though the building is enormous, it is surrounded by 58 acres of surface parking lot, leaving room for other development. Recycling existing buildings, rather than demolishing them, saves valuable energy and supports sustainability.
After World War II Southern California’s economy thrived on the aerospace industry, with campuses and facilities from Simi Valley to San Diego for Nortronic, TRW, Hughes, Aerospace Corporation, North American Aviation, General Atomic, General Dynamics, and others. Orange County boasted its share: besides Rockwell, Pereira also designed campuses for Ford Aeronutronic Systems (1958) in Newport Beach, and Astropower (1962) in Irvine, both since demolished.
The building is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Pictured above are the features of the building that convey its historic significance. Courtesy of Government Services Administration, November 2020.
According to historian Stuart Leslie of Johns Hopkins University, the architecture of these campuses captured the forward-looking, Modern atmosphere of the Golden State notably different from the staid, bureaucratic look of most similar facilities back east. For example, the lobby of Pereira’s Convair headquarters in San Diego featured a show-stopping corkscrew ramp suspended with thin metal rods; the unusual and prominent ziggurat form of the Rockwell building suited the industry and the state’s sense of its role in forging the future. Like other aerospace campuses, the building was located near highly desirable new communities, including the master-planned towns of Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo, and the seaside towns of Laguna and Dana Point.
The Holifield Building includes an original Pereira-designed lobby; Pereira’s skill as a planner allowed workers to walk anywhere in the building within five minutes. The building is Late Modern, not Brutalist, in style. Though it has a concrete structural frame, it is sheathed in precast concrete panels (like another landmark Pereira building, San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid) formed with an an interesting textured finish that captures light and shadow. In comparison, Pereira’s Geisel Library (an inverted pyramid) at UC San Diego is a true Brutalist design because its muscular poured-in-place concrete structure is expressed on its exterior.
REFERENCE DOCUMENTS
Determination of Eligibility, January 2016
Environmental Impact Statement, January 2020
Community Design Charette- 5 schemes for the future of the Chet Holifield Federal Building, January 2022