BAY CITY, MI -- In the hands of Scot Thompson, Legos aren't toys. They're the building blocks for his works of art.

It's more than a hobby. It's his passion.

The 40-year-old Bay City resident has taken his Lego craft to staggering proportions, constructing nearly to scale models of buildings throughout Bay and Saginaw counties. Currently, Thompson has two exhibits in the area, one inside the front doors of New Hope Valley Assisted Living and Memory Care, 3785 N. Center Road in Saginaw Township, and the other at the Castle Museum, 500 Federal Ave. in Saginaw. The former features well-known buildings from downtown Bay City, including the Dow Bay Area Family Y, the Mill End Lofts building, Bay City Hall, Timothy's Fine Cigars and St. Boniface Church. A massive depiction of iconic Saginaw architecture, complete with trains running down an encircling track, is setup at the Castle Museum.

"One of the coolest thing about the hobby is how flexible the medium is and how it inspires people to be creative and to learn from both their mistakes and their successes," Thompson said.

Scot Thompson displays his lego structures at the Castle Museum in Saginaw, Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. The legos he builds can take up to two months to create.

A history with Legos

Thompson's dealings with the tiny Danish bits of plastic germinated in childhood.

"I loved Legos as a kid," Thompson said. "I used to get kids together before the bus and we would play and build space stations."

His interest in Legos waned for several years -- what Thompson refers to as a "dark age" -- but he rediscovered them in 2009, when his mother and sister bought a Lego train set at a garage sale.

"I was just enthralled," he said. "It made me want go home and build buildings. If you have transportation, you have to go somewhere. It was a great start; I built 53 buildings right away for the train."

From there, he attended a Lego convention and discovered a community of Lego aficionados. Returning home, he found a local community dubbed the Michigan LEGO Users Group, which currently has 35 members from across the state.

"I started attending right away and became actively involved and became president within the year," Thompson said. "By 2010, I built Cinderella's Castle from Disneyland and brought that to a convention in Chicago then brought it home, tore it apart, and built St. Boniface Church out of the parts."

The church stood as Thompson's first model based on local architecture. By 2011, he had his first version of Bay City Hall. The next year, he was on his fourth version, which is the iteration currently on display at New Hope Valley.

All of his creations are roughly 1/48 to scale of the buildings they're based on.

"They're not exact, because you're bound to scale limitations of the components themselves," he said. "I go and look at orientations of windows and doors and use visual acuity. I also design them with the thought process of them being modular and having them setup within a display. I am an exhibitionist, I suppose. I'm part of a club that presents our stuff publicly on a regular basis."

The hobby doesn't come cheap. Thompson said he easily spends thousands of dollars annually on Legos.

"One set that I would like usually costs $150-plus and I very rarely only get one set in a year. Bricks will cost $100 a box to get the same style brick, and I'm not talking big boxes either. Bricks come out to roughly 10 cents apiece on average price. When you buy them in quantity, sometimes you can get them for as little as four or six cents apiece, but when you're talking about models that take 5,000 or 10,000 or 25,000 or 35,000 pieces, it adds up."

Scot Thompson displays his lego structures at the Castle Museum in Saginaw, Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. The Lego creations he builds can take up to two months to create.

Thompson's work in public

In 2014, Thompson had a display at the Castle Museum showcasing the skylines of Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland. There, he met Rumi Shahzad, owner of New Hope Valley, who expressed interest in featuring some of his models at his facility.

From September 2014 through January 2015, the facility housed Thompson's Saginaw creations. Since April, the facility has displayed his Bay City constructs and will do so through the Fourth of July.

"We took our residents on an outing (to the museum) and as they were out there, they were sort of mesmerized," Shahzad said. "One of them, I pointed out the Temple Theatre building to her, and she said, 'Honey, I used be an usher there.' Then she starts talking about the things she used to do there."

With the models piquing the elderly residents' memories, Shahzad made it a point to get them in his facility for them to enjoy.

"The other benefit to this is we have had several Lego clubs from local elementary schools come here and have had Scot give them workshops on how to work with Legos," Shahzad said. "We've been able to engage several community members as part of this."

The Castle Museum is currently featuring an exhibit titled "Inspired by Bricks," featuring Thompson's Saginaw-specific works. The large-scale model comprises Saginaw landmarks such as the Ippel Building, Temple Theatre, Hoyt Library, and the museum itself.

It took Thompson 20 hours over three days to set up the display, on top of months of work constructing the buildings.

Scot Thompson, president of the Michigan Lego Users Group, created Lego models of Saginaw buildings. The large collection is on display at the Castle Museum, 500 Federal Ave. in Saginaw.

Hope for the future

Thompson doesn't only use Legos to make historical buildings. Commissioned by Shahzad, he built a model of New Hope Valley, using intense attention to detail to ensure the colors matched and its courtyard and fountains were accurate.

Shahzad is in the early stages of having an analogous retirement community with a 150,000-square foot building built in Bay County and Thompson has been building models for how it could look.

Once the Bay City set leaves New Hope Valley in July, Thompson is taking it to a show in Cincinnati for a weekend display.

"Other than that, they'll stay in my basement until I have use for them or if I decide to reinvent," he said.

He has not sold any of his creations.

"Most people think, 'Oh, here's a toy,'" he said. "I have way more invested than that. A lot of people that think they want to buy it don't appreciate the investment involved in it, either time or materials."

Ideally, he'd like a permanent public display for some of his models, though that's a ways off, Thompson said.

Thompson is married and has a 10-year-old son, Maxwell, in whom he has cultivated an affinity for Legos.

"It's his favorite toy," he said. "As it should be with my fervor. He loves to play, he loves to give tours of my cities. He loves in the playful side of it. He likes to build small sets, but his independent, creative endeavors are very much that of a 10-year-old."

When asked if he has a favorite work, Thompson hedged.

"Favorites are funny, because as I keep on building, the one that I'm just building right now is really in my head and I'm enamored with it and I'm really keen on it," he said. "Traditional favorites, I'm still very fond of the Bay City Hall. It's one of my favorites. It's really a focal point for my collection of Bay City buildings."