A museum dedicated to marathon running is moving stride-by-stride closer to shovels in the ground in Hopkinton, where organizers say it will attract running enthusiasts to the region year-round, not just on Marathon Weekend.
The International Marathon Center, the brainchild of the 26.2 Foundation, has been in the works for the past five years, since the organization secured a 99-year lease agreement with Hopkinton in May 2021.
Tim Kilduff, the foundation’s president and founder, has told the Herald that he expects the roughly $35 million project, paid for by mostly private funding, to break ground on its 19-acre site in about a year.
Kilduff, who served as Boston Marathon race director in 1983 and 1984, added that the project’s permitting process is expected to start sometime this spring, as it will need to be reviewed by the Planning Board and Conservation Commission.
At its core, the International Marathon Center will unite the world of marathon running within a 25,000-square-foot facility slated to feature a museum, hall of fame, education center, theater and outdoor trails for runners.
As the permitting process gets underway, the 26.2 Foundation is working with the MetroWest YMCA and the Hopkinton Center for the Arts, looking to create a cultural district in Hopkinton.
“It can’t just be a structure that is inwardly focused,” Kilduff told the Herald this week. “This is really going to drive Hopkinton’s economic future, as far as I am concerned. People are starting to push us; that’s one of the reasons.”
“People see the value,” he added. “Hopkinton will be a destination.”
The International Marathon Center is slated to be situated on the Boston Marathon course along Route 135, less than a mile from the iconic starting line.
Brian Herr, a Hopkinton Select Board member who has run the Boston Marathon 30 times, told the Herald that the town is “very supportive” of the project. The center will build off the momentum seen every Patriots’ Day Weekend, he said.
“The International Marathon Center will draw runners and fitness enthusiasts from around the world to our wonderful community for years to come,” Herr said. “As a former Boston Marathon participant, I can’t wait to see the exhibits and participate in the many programs planned.”
Though it has a “high regard” for the Boston Marathon, Kilduff said his foundation is focused on structuring the center to be globally focused. He noted how roughly 3,000 marathons are held annually around the world.
The facility could be the “connecting point” that brings the running world together, Kilduff said.
“The marathons really aren’t connected; they’re kind of siloed,” he said. “No one has really made an effort to connect marathoners, and that’s where we see the real value, the potential in the International Marathon Center.”
“If roughly a million people a year run a marathon,” he added, “think about the reach and the network that we could develop if we start bringing those marathoners together under some umbrella.”
The 26.2 Foundation’s early estimates indicate the center could attract 60,000 people a year. Kilduff, though, said he’s heard those numbers are “too conservative,” and that annual attendance could creep upwards of 100,000 visitors.
At the time when the town and the 26.2 Foundation reached the 99-year lease agreement, then-Town Manager Norman Khumalo compared the International Marathon Center to the Baseball Hall of Fame in rural Cooperstown, N.Y.
“It will be of significant importance to the economic growth and development not only of Hopkinton,” Khumalo said at the time, “but also to the entire MetroWest region.”
A rendering of the International Marathon Center in Hopkinton. (Courtesy of 26.2 Foundation)