Constructed in 1971, the hotel was designed by Emery Roth & Sons for real estate developer Harry Helmsley.

The Helmsley Park Lane Hotel's construction spanned from 1967 to its final completion in 1971, during a mid-century building boom that began around 1960 and ended with the collapse of financial markets in 1969.

[5] The Park Lane Hotel structure, at the center of a preservation battle between Witkoff and architects, was purchased by the former in 2013 for $660 million.

[9] In August 2023, the Qatar Investment Authority bought the Park Lane Hotel from Witkoff for $623 million.

Emery Roth & Sons specialized in high-rise commercial buildings and worked in partnership with many other major real estate developers such as the Durst Organization, Tishman Construction, and the Uris Corporation.

In May 2017, Witkoff and his associates put the hotel up for sale, forced by a United States Department of Justice forfeiture complaint against Low.