On a sidewalk in the Crossroads Arts District, lines and waves of blue and orange ripple across the wavy metal walls of Brewery Emperial.
SpraySeeMo mural group and art agency co-founder Ami Harrington points at the building full of color. The piece, “Soccer Portals” by Miami Artist HOXXOH, was the final mural that SpraySeeMo painted for Kansas City ahead of the 2026 World Cup this past summer.
“The light blue for Argentina,” she said. “The orange for the Netherlands.”
Her husband and business partner, Jason Harrington, said the design is meant to show two soccer balls and an infinity symbol caught in a tunnel of competing teams.
That was perfectly relevant during the World Cup. But does it have lasting value now that the fans from all over the world have gone home? It’s a question Kansas City is asking about many projects and programs the city was proud to showcase over the summer.
Some projects were already in the works before Kansas City was named a host city. The tournament simply gave officials a reason to finish them sooner. Other efforts, like a program that puts local businesses in vacant storefronts, were temporary experiments. And not every participant came away with the results they hoped for.
Now, the lasting value of those investments depends on what residents can continue to use, what local organizations can build on and which promises might not have been fulfilled.
In the years leading up to the World Cup, Ami and Jason Harrington worked with the city, private investors and dozens of artists toward one big goal: painting 100 murals around Kansas City.In the West Bottoms, developer SomeraRoad commissioned seven murals as part of that broader push. The company, spearheading a $500 million-plus redevelopment of the neighborhood, partnered with SpraySeeMO to select a mix of local and visiting artists.
The goal was to use the World Cup’s global spotlight to encourage people to explore the neighborhood and its creative community, says Grant Hromas of SomeraRoad KC.
“We look for blank walls around the neighborhood that people would actually see, places where a mural could tell the story of the West Bottoms or celebrate the World Cup,” Hromas said.
The Harringtons wanted to give artists room to make work that could stand on its own after the games ended. Jason said they tried to prioritize creative freedom, so the murals could “stand the test of time” long after the World Cup.
“I was already thinking of it (the tournament) being over when we were painting stuff because I’m just such a forward thinker,” said Jason.
A few of the murals used soccer imagery directly. Others approached the sport more abstractly, leaving room for people to interpret the work without the context of the World Cup.
The remaining murals are scattered around the city and catalogued on SpraySeeMo’s mural map.
Concrete changes
Some of the most visible World Cup leftovers are the projects the city hustled to finish before visitors arrived. Ahead of the tournament, the city completed safety improvements along Southwest Boulevard, from 25th Street to Broadway. The work included repaved roadways, traffic signals, flood-storage infrastructure and improvements beneath the I-35 overpass.
It also upgraded Stadium Drive, adding sidewalks and a raised shared-use path. A new pathway along the Grand Boulevard bridge connects bicyclists and pedestrians between the River Market and Berkley Riverfront Park. And part of 18th Street was redesigned for pedestrians, with new lighting, landscaping and public seating.
Jason Waldron, Kansas City’s public works director, said none of these projects began because of the World Cup. What the tournament provided was a deadline – and a reason to move faster.
“Once the World Cup was announced, we felt that added sense of urgency to make sure that we were on time,” Waldron said.
For the Grand Boulevard bridge, that meant working to open it before the matches began, rather than afterward. Waldron said Stadium Drive was especially influenced by the expected increase in traffic around the stadium.
Waldron said city leaders were also determined not to let preparations for a global event come at the expense of native Kansas Citians.
“We were not going to deliver these large events on the backs of local services,” he said.
But the question is not just whether the projects were finished on time. It’s whether the improvements will meet residents’ needs long after the visitors have left.
For some residents, the city didn’t nail that balance perfectly. They are questioning whether the World Cup’s economic and infrastructure investments reached far enough beyond the areas where visitors were concentrated.
Less visible leftovers
Other parts of the World Cup buildup aren’t as obvious.
Johnson County Parks and Recreation bought a 20-by-30 foot screen for just under $300,000, says Kellen Jenkins, the district’s marketing and communications manager. The screen, located in Shawnee Mission Park, displayed 24 games during the tournament, drawing more than 12,000 attendees and visitors from dozens of countries.
It’s been in storage since the tournament, but the district says they plan to incorporate it into next year’s Theater in the Park season and is exploring ways to make it mobile enough for other events outside the park.
Johnson County Libraries also added free charging lockers for phones. County departments including the library, sheriff’s office, transit and corrections invested in translation devices that can be used long after the last match.
Elissa Andre, the marketing and communications manager for the Johnson County Library, said both the charging lockers and translation devices have been put to good use since the end of the tournament.
As of October 16th, the library has done approximately 750 translations with the devices, primarily in Spanish, Korean and Japanese.
The library has seen the impact firsthand. According to Andre, a Spanish-speaking visitor and his daughter came into the Corinth branch a few weeks after the World Cup. Using the translation device, the library staff was able to get him registered for a library card, and his daughter even got a free Spanish-language book through their summer reading program.
“The (World Cup) was the impetus to dedicate budget and staff time to launching these initiatives,” she said. “We anticipate these services will be in place for many years to come, and usage will continue to expand.”
Bo McCall, Johnson County’s strategic initiatives manager, helped oversee the county’s World Cup planning. He said those physical investments matter, but he thinks the tournament left something less tangible behind, too.
“The regional collaboration and just.. knowing that we can do this as a region will be something that impacts the region and Johnson County for decades to come,” he said.
For Waldron, too, one of the most lasting legacies of the World Cup wasn’t a bridge, sidewalk, or a mural – but rather the network of relationships built during years of planning.
“Whether it’s another event or maybe it’s just a project that crosses agency lines, we just have a little more of that connection,” he said.
The storefront experiment
Open Doors!, a partnership with the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City and the city-run program KC BizCare, was created to put small businesses and organizations into vacant storefronts around Kansas City ahead of the tournament.
The idea was to give local operators a temporary place to work, reach new customers and test concepts that might continue after the World Cup. The program paid 80% of the rent and gave each participant a $10,000 grant to get started.
For 515 Music Hub, that meant bringing together two local music organizations to run a live venue. KC Jazz Alive board treasurer Emily Behrmann met Music Across Borders founder Lindsey Jarrett through an Open Doors! call. In about a month, they turned a vacant storefront into a live music venue that featured a stage, exterior artwork and furniture that could hold up to 100 guests.
The organizers hoped the tournament would bring new visitors to the neighborhood. That didn’t happen to the extent they expected.
“A lot of people on the Westside would probably say that they really didn’t get increased foot traffic during the World Cup,” Jarrett said.
The venue gave the organizations an opportunity to work together and test what it would take to operate a community music space. But that opportunity came with an expiration date.
The six-month agreement ends this fall and 515 Music Hub is scheduled to close Oct. 31. But other businesses that participated in the program are looking for ways to stay.
Antionette Redmond, co-owner of Bubbles and Goo, said the business is in conversations with its landlord about extending its lease after the activation period expires.
“Like any small business, we have experienced our share of challenges, learning curves and growing pains,” Redmond said. “However, the program gave us an opportunity to learn firsthand what it takes to operate a business and build a foundation for long term success.”
Erica Muñoz, owner and executive chef of Madrina Vegana Taqueria, also hopes to stick around after the program ends. Muñoz said the exposure has been encouraging enough that she is looking for a permanent brick-and-mortar location.
Muñoz had a similar sentiment when it came to World Cup traffic. She estimated that visitors in town for the tournament only accounted for 10% to 15% of her customers from that period.
Behrmann hopes the city will consider bringing back a program like Open Doors!, potentially with a specific track for nonprofits and arts organizations. “That kind of investment in the nonprofit community can be really important, especially where music and the arts are concerned,” she said.
Nia Webster, the city liaison for Open Doors!, said the program is in the early stages of collecting and evaluating the program’s impact metrics, including outcomes from participating businesses and storefront activations. That will determine the possibility of another round, and what it would like given the lessons learned. “From that data, we’ll look at it and say ‘how do we want to approach it next time?’” said Webster.
Looking forward
Reflecting on the summer, Waldron said the tournament showed what a city of Kansas City’s size can do.
“Kansas City proved that we were large enough to accommodate the event and small enough to care,” he said.
But pride in hosting a global event isn’t the same as benefitting from it. Behrmann said Kansas Citians felt proud their city was chosen, though she’s not sure “that everybody in every neighborhood might agree with that.”
Other investments, including pedestrian improvements and equipment purchases, have a longer life ahead of them. Whether they become lasting benefits depends on how they are used and on whether future investments reach the residents and neighborhoods that need them.
Jarrett said that if worldwide attention can bring financial and infrastructural resources to communities, then she is “all for it.”
The World Cup gave Kansas City a deadline. What comes next will show what the city does with the momentum.
