Initially it was intended that the church would face Karangahape Road but the plans were revised so it was actually constructed with the main façade on Queen Street.

The building was opened to the wider community on 12 May 1885, where a special tithe was taken to cover the final £100, rendering the church debt free.

[1] Designed by a local architect Edmund Bell, the building was directly based on the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London and featured the same columned portico derived from the Pantheon in Rome.

[4] Thomas Spurgeon's non-identical twin brother Charles was the pastor of the Greenwich Baptist Church.

Blomfield was a sign writer and interior decorator who operated from a shop adjacent to the Tabernacle, although he is mostly known for his landscape paintings, especially of the Pink and White Terraces.