World Cup scouting report: Kansas City, growing town on the move, takes next step in hosting its first games

CoStar News examined each FIFA World Cup host city and what the tournament June 11-July 19 could mean for local infrastructure, real estate, tourism and economic development long before the first soccer match is played. Find links to all the markets here.

The FIFA World Cup is coming to cities throughout North America, with Kansas City being the least populated of the 16 host cities but was chosen because of its central U.S. location, soccer-specific stadiums and passion for the sport.

Kansas City will be hosting World Cup matches for the first time with six games scheduled to be played at Arrowhead Stadium, which will be referred to as Kansas City Stadium during the tournament. The tournament is expected to bring about 650,000 visitors to the most populated city in Missouri with more than half-a-million residents. The metropolitan area straddling Missouri and Kansas totals 2.2 million residents.

The World Cup games, including four group-stage matches, one round-of-32 knockout game and one quarter-final match, are expected to have a direct economic impact exceeding $653 million in the greater Kansas City region.

Dan Hunt, president of Major League Soccer's FC Dallas and co-chair of the North Texas FIFA World Cup 2026 Organizing Committee, is in a unique position, where he is closely tied to both Dallas and Kansas City — two of the host cities for the World Cup's 2026 matches. His brother Clark Hunt, chairman of Hunt Sports Group, is an honorary co-chair of the KC 2026 host committee.

"With Arrowhead being outdoors, it will create a whole different experience," Dan Hunt told CoStar News, adding that he believes the stadium to be among "the loudest in the world" with a passionate fan base. "Kansas City is famous for its tailgating, and that will be a nice thing for visitors to share in that culture by arriving early and participating in the sport."

The reigning world soccer champion, Argentina, led by soccer star Lionel Messi, has selected Kansas City to serve as the team's home base for training during the tournament.

The influx of World Cup fans comes at a time when nearly 1,300 rooms are under construction in Kansas City, representing about 3.5% of the market's total inventory, according to CoStar's market analytics team.

Outside of the stadium and hotels, Kansas City plans to celebrate the World Cup matches by hosting the FIFA Fan Festival at the National WWI Museum and Memorial lawn — known as Kansas City's front porch — with the Kansas City skyline behind it. The free event will span 18 days with capacity to hold up to 25,000 fans.

Here's the CoStar News scouting report:

Kansas City, originally founded as a small river port near the Missouri-Kansas border in the 1830s decades after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explored the area, flourished as a jumping-off point for the western U.S. expansion.

The city's tallest tower, One Kansas City Place, a 42-story, 822,391-square-foot office tower, is 100% occupied with tenants including Evergy, Bank of America and HeartLand. The tower is an example of the broader Kansas City office market, which CoStar market analysts say is on "firmer footing," with positive leasing velocity, easing sublease burdens and limited new construction.

The Kansas City area has one Fortune 500 company with conglomerate Seaboard Corp. Other large companies in the area include electric utility Evergy, H&R Block, AMC Theatres, Hallmark Cards and Associated Wholesale Grocers.

Kansas City is one of the nation's most affordable places to buy a home, with Homes.com reporting the median sales price in Kansas City is $280,000 compared with the national median of $420,000. Those prices can vary by neighborhood and school district.

Kansas City's office market is slowly showing signs of stabilizing after years of disruption in the wake of the pandemic, CoStar's market analysts said, with its vacancy rate tightening to 10.2%, improving by about 70 basis points year over year and keeping the city at about 300 basis points below the national average. In the past 12 months, Kansas City clocked an office leasing velocity of more than 1.5 million square feet of space — marking the fifth consecutive quarter of positive demand.

Meanwhile, Kansas City's industrial market was one of the strongest in the nation through the end of 2025, with 7.8 million square feet of leasing velocity in the past 12 months, according to CoStar's market analytics team. Market asking rents grew 2.3% over 2025 compared with the national average of 1.2%.

Kansas City's retail market has been hit by some national retailer closings, with tenants moving out of 2.9 million square feet of retail space in the last 12 months, according to CoStar data. The city's vacancy rate sits at 4.5%, with more than 600,000 square feet of new retail construction in the pipeline, according to the data.

GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City has been the home turf of the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs since it opened in 1972. Arrowhead is the fourth-largest NFL stadium with capacity for 76,416 fans. The natural grass surface was renovated to expand the field to meet FIFA regulations ahead of the World Cup games.

Arrowhead Stadium played center stage for a globally watched romance between Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce and singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The two met after Swift performed at Arrowhead Stadium during "The Eras Tour" in 2023 and got engaged in 2025.

The NFL's Chiefs are owned by the Hunt family that also owns FC Dallas and helped found Major League Soccer. The Hunt family sold what is now MLS' Sporting KC, one of the league's charter teams, in 2006.

Clark Hunt who now serves as CEO and chairman of the Kansas City Chiefs was pivotal in helping secure World Cup games for Kansas City, serving as a leader of the 2026 Kansas City bid committee.

Kansas City is known by locals as being the Soccer Capital of America for its deeply rooted passionate soccer fan base.

Arrowhead Stadium has previously hosted high-profile soccer matches, including a 2010 friendly with local team Sporting KC with Manchester United, a 2024 Copa America match and a 2024 match featuring Messi with Inter Miami CF.

Messi is preparing to return to the stadium with the Argentina national team as part of a group stage match in this year's World Cup.