The Radisson Hotel Collection Berlin could reopen before the end of the year.
The hotel was forced to close in December 2022 when its 50-foot-tall “AquaDom” lobby aquarium, the visual center of the property, broke apart.
No human lives were lost, and more than half of its 1,500 fish were saved.
One possibility has been ruled out by owner Union Investment Real Estate GmbH: There will not be a new aquarium on-site.
UI said in a news release accompanying the October 2022 independent report on the incident that “reconstruction of the AquaDom or the installation of a new, large aquarium was ruled out by Union Investment even before the investigations were completed.”
Demolition work in the lobby has been completed, and UI plans to submit a building application to start a full renovation soon.
Radisson Hotel Group is “committed to reopening the hotel under the luxury-lifestyle Radisson Collection brand and are looking at a reopening date not before the first quarter of 2024,” Simon Riegler-Kern, senior area manager of public relations for Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and marketing activation for Germany, Austria and Switzerland at Radisson Hotel Group, told HNN.
He said UI and Radisson’s plan is to have an update at the three-day International Hotel Investment Forum, which begins in Berlin on April 15.
According to the incident report, the AquaDom collapsed due to one of three possibilities — “the manufacturing phase during the bonding of the individual acrylic glass elements and in the renovation phase in 2019, for example, in a drying process of the acrylic elements or a possible notch effect on the cylinder in its base area.”
The incident resulted in several leased stores being closed.
Fabian Hellbusch, Union Investment’s head of marketing and communication, said the company is “making every effort to bring all the affected shops back online as quickly as possible and are in daily exchange with our tenant partners to continue finding good and unbureaucratic solutions together.”