The Park Inn by Radisson Berlin Alexanderplatz is the second tallest building in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and the 48th-tallest building and tallest hotel-only building in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. The 41-floor skyscraper is in the northeast of

Alexanderplatz (, ''Alexander Square'') is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from in the north-ea ...

in the central

Mitte Mitte () is the first and most central borough of Berlin. The borough consists of six sub-entities: Mitte proper, Gesundbrunnen, Hansaviertel, Moabit, Tiergarten and Wedding. It is one of the two boroughs (the other being Friedrichshain-Kreuz ...

district and has a height of .

History

Foundation and early years

The complex was built from 1967 to 1970 in the course of the redevelopment of Alexanderplatz when it was located in

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

. It was designed by the team of Roland Korn, Heinz Scharlipp and Hans Erich Bogatzky. However, the design as built differs in the shape and location of the tower on the lot from that envisaged in the 1964 plan for redevelopment of the square. The four-star hotel opened as the Hotel Stadt Berlin, part of

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

's Interhotel chain. There was a panorama restaurant on the 37th floor and unusually fast

elevator An elevator (American English) or lift (Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive traction cables and counterweight systems suc ...

s for the time and place.

Development after the GDR

In 1993, after the

German reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

and until 2003, it had been extensively refurbished and renamed Forum Hotel Berlin, then operated by

IHG Hotels & Resorts InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), marketed as IHG Hotels & Resorts, is a British multinational hospitality company headquartered in Windsor, Berkshire, England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. It ...

. In 2003,

Rezidor Hotel Group Rezidor Hotel Group AB, originally SAS International Hotels A/S and then Rezidor SAS Hospitality A/S, Rezidor SAS Hospitality Group AB (publ), was a listed hotel group company. Originally founded by Scandinavian conglomerate SAS Group as a hotel ...

became the operator of the hotel, which was renamed to Park Inn Berlin-Alexanderplatz and subsequently

Park Inn by Radisson Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts, formerly ''Park Plaza International Hotels, Inns and Resorts'' and commonly known as just Park Plaza, is a hotel chain which runs several hotel groups as franchises. It was established in 1986 as a company and acqui ...

Berlin Alexanderplatz. A casino, the highest in Europe, was located in the restaurant until November 2010. There is a public viewing platform on the roof. All the rooms were refurbished starting in 2001 at a cost of

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

20 million. Between May and November 2005 the entire

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

was replaced; the 6,800 new mirror-glass panes cost €3 million. In October 2006, two antenna masts were erected on the roof, bringing the total height of the building to . In December 2006 the hotel and the attached real estate parcels were acquired by

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. It was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions firm by Peter Peterson and Stephen Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman ...

.Archiv: Alexanderplatz: Blackstone Group - Bebauung Block D1-D3
, Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung, retrieved July 3, 2010

Base building

The base of the tower rises from a three-story commercial building with its largest tenants being

Burger King Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...

and

Primark Primark Limited (; trading as Penneys in Ireland) is an Irish multinational fashion retailer with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with outlets across Europe and in the United States. The original ''Penneys'' brand is not used outside of Irel ...

amongst some smaller stores. The top floor offers direct access to the adjacent Galeria department store, which had been a ''Centrum Warenhaus'' in the

GDR East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

. For 15 years, the ground floor and basement levels housed Berlin's first

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

electronics store (like Galeria, formerly a division of

Metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

), but in March 2009 this outlet relocated to a new adjacent building. The future of the hotel and especially the base building are uncertain; plans to rebuild Alexanderplatz drawn up in the early 1990s envisage demolition of the hotel or at a minimum of the base building to enable erection of three new high-rises. a new high-rise building is under construction directly next to the base building without plans to affect it directly.

References

External links