It was Jakarta's first modern department store, famous for having Indonesia's first escalators (installed by Hitachi), for being air-conditioned and for having electronic cash registers.

[2] The building was built by Obayashi Corporation and state-owned construction company Adhi Karya, using Japanese war reparation funds.

The new towers will house high end restaurants; offices; and venues for meetings, conferences, and exhibition halls.

[5] For the renovation to be carried out on the existing building, the management ordered all tenants of to close in a 30 April 2020 memo.

Notably the closing of the first McDonald's in Indonesia at the Sarinah location on 10 May 2020 attracted a considerable crowd and legal rebuke for violation of social distancing laws in effect for the endless COVID-19 pandemic at the time.