Deadline nears for Bellingham Old City Hall LEGO set. Here’s where voting stands
In March of 2024, a model of Bellingham’s Old City Hall was approved to be part of the LEGO Ideas program, where the toy company crowd-sources ideas for new LEGO sets.
The model of the iconic downtown Bellingham building, which is now part of the Whatcom Museum, was designed by Bellingham’s Brad Bergman, who was featured on season four of the competition show “LEGO Masters.” A scaled-down version debuted at a Whatcom Museum event that April.
Deadline approaches for Old City Hall LEGO set?
Hurdles remain if the model is to ever be released as a LEGO set. The design needs 10,000 online votes in order to advance to the next step in the process. If it reaches that mark, it will go in front of a review board before receiving the final sign-off and making it into production.
As of July 17, the design has just over 4,500 votes, with 130 days remaining. However, there’s a chance the deadline gets pushed back. If the design receives 5,000 votes, the deadline will be pushed back by 182 days to May of 2026.
It’s already received a pair of extensions to the original 60-day timeline. Once it hit the 100-vote mark, the deadline was pushed back by a year, and the design earned an 182-day extension for reaching the 1,000-vote threshold.
How to vote for Old City Hall LEGO set
You can vote on the design’s page on the LEGO Ideas website. You need an account, which is free to create, in order to vote.
Whatcom Museum unveils LEGO sloth
Another Bellingham icon is being memorialized into merch — this time it’s “Slothy,” the comical tree-dweller that’s become a new symbol of the City of Subdued Excitement.
Whatcom Museum is now selling a limited-edition Lego version of Slothy. The custom set, which was also designed by Bergman, contains nearly 250 pieces and is available in the museum store.
“The Legend lives on — in brick form,” the Whatcom Museum said Wednesday on its Instagram account.
“Slothy” gained fame recently when a stuffed sloth was removed from its year-long perch in a tree along northbound Interstate 5 south of the city.
Washington State Department of Transportation officials said Slothy was a nuisance. But Bellinghamsters saw the sloth as a kind of roadside beacon signaling that they were nearly home. Pranksters kept placing stuffed sloths in trees alongside the freeway until WSDOT finally relented and let the critter keep hanging out.
Whatcom Museum spokeswoman Adrienne Dawson said the Lego sloths are in a limited run and are available for $55 in the at the museum store at the Lightcatcher galleries.
Brad Bergman of Bellingham, who competed on the “Lego Masters” reality TV series, created the Slothy model, Dawson told The Herald. Amdmission isn’t required to browse the museum store at 250 Flora St.
This story was originally published July 18, 2025 at 5:00 AM.