Berlin is not a high-rise city, and Neukoelln is not a high-rise district. The Estrel Tower will nonetheless top out as the tallest building in the German capital at 176 metres, and it’s privately financed by the man who owns the hotel next door.
Project Scope
Forty-five storeys deliver 525 hotel rooms and serviced apartments plus roughly 9,000 square metres of office and coworking, across 77,500 square metres of total floor area. Investment volume is reported at 260 million euros excluding land. Barkow Leibinger won the design competition back in 2013 with triangulated, tangram-like volumes and a sloped silhouette that answers both the existing Estrel block and the low-rise fabric around it. A rooftop terrace faces the city.
The technically decisive element sits underground. CDM Smith engineered a combined pile-and-slab foundation, the standard answer for putting a 176-metre tower on Berlin’s sandy subsoil, and it’s the reason the scheme worked at this height on this site. Anes Bau built the shell. The tower passed 100 metres in 2024 and held its topping-out ceremony in early March.
The program changed mid-stream. It was conceived as a pure hotel; owner Ekkehard Streletzki revised it to mixed hotel and office use during the pandemic. The Neukoelln borough assembly approved the project in December 2017 and construction started in November 2021.
Why It Matters
The tower is chasing LEED Platinum, which is uncommon for a European hotel of this height and unusual for a privately financed one, where the certification premium is harder to justify without an institutional owner demanding it.
Commercially it’s a bet on the association-congress market. The Estrel is already Germany’s largest hotel and convention complex, and the tower is sized to capture international congresses that currently route to Munich, Vienna or Barcelona. A soft opening is planned for summer 2026 with first guests by year end.
Politically it’s the anchor of a high-rise wave along Sonnenallee that Neukoelln residents have not universally welcomed. Berlin’s skyline debate has run for two decades. This building settles part of it by simply being taller than everything else.
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Project Team & Details
| Developer | Estrel Berlin (Ekkehard Streletzki) |
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| Owner / Client | Estrel Berlin |
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| Architect | Barkow Leibinger |
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| Consultants | CDM Smith (Geotechnical / Combined Pile-Raft Foundation) |
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| General Contractor | Anes Bau (Shell and Structure) |
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| Status | Topped Out |
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| Sustainability Certification | LEED Platinum (targeted) |
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| Funding Source | Private |
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