After reading all the Mitte comments we have decided to stay at the Westin Grand Hotel in Berlin. I think that the location will be wonderful for dining, sightseeing, shopping and convenience and the price is OK. Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll let you know how it goes.

The Westin has very nice public rooms and decent hotel restaurant with terrace dining as well. They did a fairly good job in updating the public rooms. It is indeed surrounded by cafes & stores pls the Gendarmenmarkt is just a block away. The only gripes I have are the terrible rooms they have. They are very tired old and worn down rooms with outdated furnishings from the late 60's, far below the Westin standard. We were extremely disappointed even after being moved to the larger corner room for $ 200+ as it was just a larger dump!. It is nothing like the nice Westins in Italy. It's a shame that the Westin can be so varied in their room quality. It is still a great deal if you pay below $80 a night from hotel room bidding just for the location but I wouldn't recommend it if you pay any more than that.