[4] The building has been called "one of the finest examples" of High Victorian Gothic architecture in the state of Oregon.

[4] It includes stained-glass windows made by Portland's Povey Brothers Art Glass Works and a church bell cast with bronze from captured Civil War cannons.

[7] With a congregation numbering just twelve members initially,[4][8] services were originally held in private homes, twice a month.

[4] Services were later held at a larger venue, the Canton House—a public meeting place at Front and Washington streets that was later known as the Pioneer Hotel, the Lincoln House and the American Exchange building.

[8] As the congregation continued to grow, First Presbyterian counted many prominent Portlanders among its members, including Henry W. Corbett, William S. Ladd, John C. Ainsworth, and Jacob Kamm.

[14] The chapel was finished in May 1889,[6] in the new building's west end, and services began being held there[15] as work continued on the main auditorium.

[5][6] Designed in High Victorian Gothic style, the First Presbyterian Church occupies an 85-by-140-foot (26 m × 43 m) site and includes a 185-foot-tall (56 m) spire.

An additional entrance on the building's north side is located immediately west of the sanctuary and east of the chapel, and is positioned about mid-block on Alder Street.

A "dormer-like" pavilion (without entrance) is centered in the narthex, below the great window—the church's largest stained-glass window, in the east end of the auditorium.

[15] At its north end, on Alder Street, it has a twin-door entrance, with a narrow sandstone arch above each single door.

[6] The auditorium features extensive use of cherrywood,[6] carved by Nicholas Strahan, for the "chancel, choir loft, and organ", as well as for "the pulpit, pews, ornamentation, and balcony railings".

[4] The 57-foot-high ceiling is topped by a timber roof that has "arched braces, hammerbeams, kingposts, tie beams, purlins and rafters, all carved and ornamented, and, like the rest of the woodwork, in a natural finish," as described in the building's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

[22] The church complex now occupies the entire city block, bounded by 12th and 13th avenues and Alder and Morrison Streets, but this was not the case before 2006.

Since 1924, the Danmoore Hotel building had stood in the southeast quadrant of the block, directly abutting the porte-cochère[3] at the church's southernmost entrance, but it was demolished in 2005 to make way for an underground parking garage.

The Danmoore's residents were relocated, the building was razed, and a three-story underground parking garage was built in the space, being completed in March 2006.

[10] A landscaped plaza designed by Hennebery Eddy Architects was created on top of the parking garage,[18] at street level, and opened at the same time.