The then Maharajah of Vizianagaram, Sir Pusapati Ananda Gajapati Raju, who laid the foundation stone for the new building on 17 December 1883, also led a list of 35 donors for the construction work with a contribution of ₹ 10,000.

Other contributors included Ramnad Raja Bhaskara Setupati, Zamindar of Ettiapuram and Hadji Abdul Batcha Sahib.

[3] The hall, an example of Indo-Saracenic architecture, was designed by Robert Fellowes Chisholm (1840–1915) in the Romanesque style and was built by Namperumal Chetty between 1888 and 1890.

National leaders like Swami Vivekananda, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and Sardar Vallabhai Patel have addressed meetings in the hall.

For the next 30 years, the Sabha remained at the hall and later, built its own theatre on acquisition of 36 grounds next to Christ Church on Anna Salai and now functions only as a social club.

T. Stevenson, proprietor of the Madras Photographic Store, ran some shows that consisted of ten short films.

[3] As the city grew southward and the medium of cinema acquired greater popularity, the building gradually went out of public attention.

Constructed with red brick and painted with lime mortar, the rectangular building has an Italianate tower capped by a Travancore-style roof.

The structure consists of arcaded verandahs along the northern and southern sides in the hall on the first floor supported on sleek Corinthian stone columns,[3] a square tower that is three storeys high, and a carved pyramidal roof.

In early 1990s, Suresh Krishna, the then Sheriff of Madras, took some efforts in salvaging a part of the building, and restored the Trevelyan Fountain.

[4] The Corporation of Chennai started renovating the hall in April 2009 at a cost of ₹ 39.6 million under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.