Hilco and Pintar Need Cash to Pay for Bid on OC’s Zigguarat

Hilco Development Services and Pintar Investment bought a 1 million-square-foot government surplus building known as the Ziggurat in Laguna Niguel last month for $177 million.

Now all they have to do is come up with the money to match their winning bid for the Chet Holifield Federal Building at 24000 Avila Road, the Orange County Business Journal reported.

Cameron Hildreth, founder of the Long Beach-based Hilco, and Jeff Pintar, head of the San Juan Capistrano-based Pintar, have six months to scrape up the cash for the 91-acre property.

“We’re searching for strategic partners,” Hildreth told the Business Journal.

The federal building’s redevelopment could become one of the largest projects in South OC, with billions of dollars in homes, offices, shops and restaurants.

The gavel fell for the pyramid-shaped building on Oct. 24, with Hilco and Pintar going neck-and-neck with an unidentified bidder since June 5, when Uncle Sam opened bidding at $70 million.

The price works out to $177 per square foot, or $1.95 million an acre.

The duo plunked down a 10 percent non-refundable deposit of $17.7 million to the General Services Administration.

If they don’t close escrow and cough up the rest of the $177 million final bid, their deposit will be forfeited and the federal agency “will consider other options to re-sell the property,” Traci Washington, a spokeswoman for the GSA, told the Business Times.

The government had put the property up for sale to avoid spending $300 million on long-term repairs and upgrades.

The first auction was held in 2022, with the condition that the buyer would have to preserve the distinctive Brutalist architecture of the structure. It drew no takers.

The intense competition at the second auction — without the preservation restriction — suggested a buyer would likely bulldoze the 53-year-old building and seek new zoning for its redevelopment.

The Brutalist building, designed by William Pereira and completed in 1971 for North American Aviation, has historic importance in its resemblance to “the ancient ziggurats,” the stepped pyramids of Mesopotamia, according to the GSA.

Despite its provenance, Hildreth is determined to line up the wrecking ball.

“We’re going to knock it down — it never served its purpose,” Hildreth told the Business Journal, adding the demolition would cost between $20 million and $35 million. The approvals, demolition and construction of the unidentified project could take five years.

Hildreth, who once worked as a construction manager for Rick Caruso and The Irvine Company, declined to tell The Real Deal how Hilco plans to finance the acquisition.

Pintar, without going into specifics, suggested there is no shortage of potential uses for the site.

“The property certainly has tremendous opportunity and while there is no shortage of potential redevelopment options, the overwhelming feedback thus far from the local community is they’d love to see that building go away as fast as possible,” Pintar said.

Hilco, founded in 2017, has nearly $1 billion of projects completed or in the pipeline, including multifamily developments in Long Beach and an office building in Costa Mesa, according to the firm.

Pintar, founded in 2009, manages 3,500 single-family homes valued more than $500 million across the U.S., according to Pintar’s LinkedIn page.

— Dana Bartholomew