The base of the tower rises from a three story commercial building that houses a Burger King an ice cream parlor and some small stores. The top floor offers direct access to the adjacent Galeria Kaufhof. For 15 years the ground floor and basement levels housed Berlin's first Saturn electronics store (like Galeria Kaufhof a division of Metro AG but in March 2009 this 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. The complex was built from 1967 to 1970 in the course of the redevelopment of Alexanderplatz when it was located in East Berlin. 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 hotel opened as the Hotel Stadt Berlin part of East Germany's Interhotel chain. It was a four star hotel and mainly served for the accommodation of Comecon representatives. There was a panorama restaurant on the 37th floor and unusually fast elevators for the time and place. In 1933 after German reunification it was renamed Forum Hotel Berlin. In 2003 Rezidor Hotel Group became the operator of the hotel which was renamed to Park Inn Berlin Alexanderplatz and then Park Inn by Radisson 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 20 million. Between May and November 2005 the entire 15,000 square metre (160,000 sq ft) faqade was replaced the 6,800 new mirror glass panes cost 3 million. In October 2006 two 35 metre (115 ft ) antenna masts were erected on the roof bringing the total height of the building to 149.5 m (490 ft).
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