On the area where Scholviens Passage, the Hotel zum Kronprinzen and other houses were located, he built a new branch of his "Hermann Tietz department store", which opened on April 24, 1912.

[1] The construction costs for the department store with an upscale range and furnishings such as marble and crystal chandeliers amounted to 4½ million gold reichsmarks.

In March 1933, the managing directors, the brothers Georg and Martin Tietz, as well as their brother-in-law Hugo Zwillenberg, were presented with a debt relief plan, which ultimately led to the sale of the Tietz family's shares to Commerzbank, Deutsche and Dresdner Bank without direct government intervention ("cold Aryanization") led.

On July 29, 1933, the banking consortium forced the immediate resignation of Hugo Zwillenberg from management and ownership with a formal inheritance law settlement agreement.

[11] In 1949, the Tietz family tried to get their assets back and finally agreed to compensation in a settlement with the Hertie company by transferring ownership of the branches in Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.

At the end of the 1960s, Hertie acquired the property Große Bleichen at the corner of Poststrasse, on which the Dyckhoff textile house store was located.

However, the owner of the Alsterhaus property remains the non-profit Hertie-Stiftung [de] (foundation),[15] Karstadt cannot therefore be independent decide on structural changes to the house.

The areas of toys, books, electrical appliances, consumer electronics, carpets, furniture and household goods were completely abandoned.

[13] Above the atriums there is a restaurant on the fourth floor, the ceiling of which was designed by Professor Dirk J. Breuer which also influenced the rest of the equipment during the renovation.

[17] With the renovation, a strategy of a premium range with higher quality products in the smaller sales area was aimed for and consistently pursued.

The part of the building on the corner of Poststrasse and Große Bleichen was spun off in 2003 and is now a branch of Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) with access to the Alsterhaus on all floors.

In June 2015, Signa sold the majority stake (50.1%) to the Italian department store chain La Rinascente, which in turn is part of the Thai Central Group.