Billerica Club Would Host 2024 Olympic Shooting

The new week brought a new venue announcement from the organizers of Boston's Olympic bid.

The group Boston 2024 announced Monday that Billerica’s Minute Man Sportsman’s Club would host 15 Olympic and 12 Paralympic shooting events, if the local bid is picked to host the 2024 Summer Games.

The nonprofit had originally outlined, in January, that Long Island, in Boston Harbor, would host shooting.

“Minute Man has 80+ years of promoting excellence in the shooting sports,” Hank Garvey, a Minute Man board member, said in a statement. "For the athletes we have today in very real pursuit of the Olympic path, this provides motivation and increases their drive to achieve. For the future, it assists us in recruiting kids to be involved with this great sport; they now have a chance to be part of something really special."

The club, which was founded in 1934, encompasses 100 acres, according to the statement. The Olympics would "provide the club with new and upgraded facilities," Richard Davey, Boston 2024's CEO, said.

The Olympic shooting venue would have 5,000-seat capacity, Boston 2024 said in a fact sheet. Construction would take an estimated 16 weeks.

Boston Magazine first reported the shooting venue in Billerica.

It's the latest venue announcement from Boston 2024. Last week it said Dorchester's Harambee Park would host tennis, should it win the bid, and earlier it designated Buzzards Bay, off New Bedford, for sailing events.

The rolling-out of new venues comes as Boston 2024 is getting ready to release its updated Olympics concept. The group has said "bid 2.0" will be out by June 30 and will provide more details than its original proposal.

The recent venue announcements have spread the proposed games out geographically. That's a change. In its pitch to the U.S. Olympic Committee, Boston 2024 said "the Boston games can be the most walkable games in modern times." The original plans called for 28 of 33 venues within 6 miles of each other, WBUR's Curt Nickisch has reported.

A WBUR poll released last week, however, found that among Massachusetts residents, support for hosting the Olympics rises if venues were to be spread across the state.