This building proved thoroughly inadequate for the purposes of a municipal administration, with The Sydney Morning Herald noting in December 1887 that the council chambers were:[3] "about as inconvenient and insignificant in appearance as could well be imagined.

[4] A subsequent special meeting convened on 15 August, and selected a Victorian Italianate style design by architects, Drake and Walcott, of Pitt Street, Sydney.

[6] Stated to be "one of the finest municipal buildings in the colony", the hall was completed eight months later at the cost of £5600 and was formally opened, albeit with an incomplete tower, on 26 September 1888 by the Governor of New South Wales, Lord Carrington, in the presence of Mayor Sydney Smith and Sir Henry Parkes.

[7] The clock within the tower was not installed until 1897 to commemorate the 60 years of Queen Victoria’s reign and was unveiled on 22 June 1897 by the Mayoress, wife of mayor Robert Cropley.

[8] A branch of the Australian Joint Stock Bank operated in the north western section of the building from 1888 to 1895 when a library was established with a separate entry from Marion Street.