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Laguna Niguel’s Ziggurat auction at $156.6 million after flurry of minimum bids

September 6, 2024

The online auction for the “Ziggurat” in Laguna Niguel is now in its fourth month, thanks to minimal bids made just before deadline.

On Friday, Sept. 6, the bidding reached $156.6 million for the pyramid-shaped Chet Holifield Federal Building, which sits on an 89-acre campus.

A bid $300,000 above the previous day’s last bid – the smallest increment permitted – landed just 36 minutes before the auction would have ended. It was quickly followed by another bid, upping the price by another $300,000.

These moves, essentially parroting the bidding pace of the seven previous bidding days, created a new auction deadline for Monday, Sept. 9, at 1:22 p.m.

You see, bids increasing the price by the minimum amount are this auction’s norm. My trusty spreadsheet found 78 of the 88 bids made were $300,000 above the previous price. Now $300,000 is real money, but in the scope of this auction it equals less than 0.2% of the latest price.

It’s all part of the gamesmanship of this GSA auction, which started June 5. At stake is a campus centered around a 53-year-old, seven-story, 1-million-square-foot office facility for which the government has no use.

Bidding was originally due to end July 31, but the auction rules say if the current high bid is topped on a deadline day, the auction remains open for another 24 hours. That extension requirement was met July 31, when four bids pushed the price up by $1.2 million to $136.8 million. Plus, this requirement to extend bidding has been met on all 26 business days since July 31.

The extra auctioneering has boosted the price by $19.8 million, so far. And it’s been somewhat dramatic: on 17 of these days, the auction was extended within one hour of the deadline.

The Ziggurat is a rare opportunity for large-scale real estate development in south Orange County. This is its second auction.

The first, which required the buyer to preserve the sprawling structure, drew no bids. This auction – without that restriction on development – will likely mean demolition of the structure designed by the late famed architect William Pereira.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

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Orange County Register

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Laguna Niguel’s Ziggurat auction at $156.6 million after flurry of minimum bids

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