In the fall of 1972, Pepperdine believed it was under a building freeze imposed by LA County, halting development of phase II buildings, including what would be the Thornton Administrative Center (TAC) and the fine arts complex including Smothers Theatre. Malibu provost Jerry Hudson told Inner View the freeze would block construction indefinitely,¹ and The Graphic reported completion of both projects would be delayed well into 1973.²

The Malibu Times reported that environmental organizations had persuaded the County Board of Supervisors to return all building permits to Regional Planning for review.³ None of these sources give much detail about the nature of the order.

President William Banowsky recalls in his memoir that the source of the freeze was a September 18 order from the California Supreme Court prohibiting developers from beginning new projects along the California coast in anticipation of the November passage of a statewide referendum that would create the California Coastal Commission.⁴ Banowsky, however, cites (a non-existent issue of) The Malibu Times, and the only discussion of the freeze in the Times makes no mention of a court ruling or the Coastal Commission vote.

What is certainly true is that the creation by referendum of the California Coastal Commission in November 1972 forever changed the special relationship Pepperdine had developed with the LA County Board of Supervisors that had permitted all construction efforts on the Malibu campus. The Coastal Commission put an end to the local control of coastal zones, requiring development to be approved by the state body or one of its regional commissions.⁵ (Banowsky records the date of the vote as November 6, a Monday,⁴ but it was actually Tuesday the 7th).

Construction of the administration building and the fine arts complex would not be completed for years. Phase II essentially began with the ground breaking for the fine arts complex in 1977.⁶ The university broke ground for the TAC in 1984, having finally received Coastal Commission approval of a building that had been part of the campus's master plan since 1972. It opened in 1986.⁷