The Uris Buildings Corporation failed to pay the construction loan, which was due at the end of December 1973 and was extended multiple times. Uris decided not to extend the loan because it would not provide additional funding to cover operating and carrying costs. At that time, 12.5 percent of office space in Manhattan was vacant, higher than the 5-percent rate that the real-estate community generally accepted. The vacancy rate at the Uris Building was 30 percent. Irving Trust and the other lenders launched foreclosure proceedings in March 1974, the first time in a decade that a new office building in New York City had been foreclosed upon. Two months later, the lenders paid nearly $69 million for the bankrupted building. Harold Uris had opposed the foreclosure proceeding, saying: "Hell would freeze over before I would have let a Uris building go under like that."
