Flatiron Building, Historic commercial building in downtown Bellingham, Washington, United States

The Flatiron Building, also known as the Hamilton Building, is a seven-story reinforced-concrete structure clad in brick with a stone base, filling the triangular block bounded by Champion, Prospect and Bay Streets in downtown Bellingham. Large pivoting windows cover all sides, so the building has no central lightwell. False chimneys crown the roofline; the original wooden cornice is gone.

The Bellingham Bay Furniture Company bought the triangular block at Champion, Prospect and Bay Streets for $15,000 in April 1907 and built the Hamilton Block, which opened in May 1908. The Panic of 1907 delayed work and cancelled extra floors. A fire on 28 April 1924 gutted the top floor, but the reinforced-concrete structure survived; rebuilding took three years and added a full second story without increasing the building's height.

The nickname came from the building's triangular footprint, compared to the Fuller Building in New York. The Bellingham Bay Furniture Company, later Van's BB Furniture, sold furniture here until 1979; after the 1924 fire, Hamilton ran the store across the street, partly under a circus tent.

The structure sits at a major street corner and is easily reached by public transit. The best views for photography come from the surrounding sidewalks, where you can see the full silhouette and distinctive wedge shape from multiple angles.

The building's concrete and reinforced steel frame let it survive the April 28, 1924 top-floor fire structurally intact, with 90% of the damage covered by insurance. Rebuilding took three years and added Bellingham's first automatic sprinkler system with a rooftop tank, and the second-floor mezzanine became a full story, so the reopened building had seven floors without gaining height.