Following an appeal for support, a building on Ducie Street was secured, Hallé was appointed Principal and Queen Victoria conferred the Royal title.

The college building was built on the corner of Oxford Road and Booth Street West between 1968 and 1973 by architects Bickerdike, Allen, and Rich.

Originally an elevated walkway ran along the Oxford Road side connecting the building to the former neighbouring Precinct Centre via a bridge over Booth Street East.

Truncated sections of this walkway were the vestigial evidence of an unrealised plan to create a network of high-level "boulevards", providing pedestrian routes on concrete stilts above street level from the RNCM to neighbouring buildings, and extending as far as Hulme and Ancoats.

[6][7][8] In 1997–98, the RNCM building was extended by architects Mills Beaumont Leavey Channon, with a new entrance built on the western side, and the walkway was removed.

[10] In January 2005, the RNCM was awarded £4.5 million by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to become a recognised Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), the only UK conservatoire to be selected.