Metropolitan Hall Lofts

Metropolitan Hall Lofts

Built in 1856, just four years after Rockford incorporated as a city, Metropolitan Hall was the city's first public auditorium — billed at its opening as the largest and finest hall west of Chicago. It was also Rockford's first gas lit building.

The hall served as the premier entertainment venue of its day before being converted to shops in 1887. It remains one of only three pre-Civil War commercial buildings still standing in downtown Rockford.

Urban Equity Properties restored the building as one- and two-bedroom loft residences above ground-floor commercial space. The 1856 timber structure was left exposed overhead — the original framing of the old hall, still carrying the building nearly two centuries on.

Today Metropolitan Hall anchors Restaurant Row, the stretch of East State Street running down to the Rock River.