Bellingham’s Old City Hall just got one step closer to getting turned into a LEGO set

A LEGO replica of Bellingham’s Old City Hall building might be coming to a toy store near you. The 1892 building, which is now part of the Whatcom Museum, was accepted in LEGO Ideas, an initiative that allows the public to submit designs for potential new LEGO sets. This one was submitted by Brad Bergman, a Bellingham local who competed on the most recent season of Fox competition show “Lego Masters” alongside his husband Mike Tarrant.

Bergman adjusted the design several times before LEGO finally notified him last week that his idea had been accepted. The result was a 3,000-piece, five-module design that stands at two feet tall.

The museum is hosting a local LEGO-building competition on April 5 as part of its initiative to offer free admission the first Friday of every month. Bregman, who’s judging the competition, came up with the model for April’s event, before getting the idea to submit it to LEGO.

“I worked with the Whatcom Museum staff to design a model of Old City Hall that I could build live on Free First Friday, in keeping with April’s ‘community building’ theme. Then I suggested that we try to get the design approved for LEGO Ideas,” Bergman stated in a press release.

Voting on Lego Old City Hall

There are still a number of steps before Old City Hall is turned into a LEGO set, though. First, the design has to receive 10,000 votes. Anyone with a free account on LEGO’s website can vote online on the design’s page. Voting closes in May of 2025. In the last round of submissions, 42 designs got the number of votes needed to advance.

“That’s our next challenge,” museum educator Bridget Girnus stated about design voting in the press release.

As of midday April 4, the Old City Hall design has 241 votes. Girnus said she hopes the voting process perfectly fits the community building theme of the April 5 event, since reaching 10,000 votes will require a community-wide effort.

If Bergman’s design gets the number of votes it needs, it would go before a review board, before finally making it into production if the board approves.

This story was originally published April 4, 2024 at 12:10 PM.