photo by: Screenshot/City of Lawrence

General manager of field operations Scott Fewins, second from left, addresses the Connected City Advisory Board on Monday, Feb. 24, 2026.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup may be one of the biggest events the Kansas City area has ever seen, but it will take a lot of little details to pull it off successfully.

For Scott Fewins, general manager of field operations for Lawrence’s Municipal Services and Operations department, that means fixing sidewalks, painting parking lots, and a whole lot of cleanup.

All of that contributes to “what is people’s overall feel going to be when they step off the bus,” he told Lawrence’s Connected City Advisory Board at its meeting on Monday.

Fewins’ briefing was one of the first World Cup updates from city staff since the announcement last week that Algeria had chosen Lawrence as its base camp.

He didn’t have many details about the Algerian national team – which hotel they’re staying at hasn’t been announced yet, he said, and as for special events involving the team, he didn’t know what the team’s plans were.

But he did have a lot of details about the behind-the-scenes work that the city was doing to get ready for an influx of fans, not just from Algeria but from the other teams based in the KC area as well.

“We think regardless of whether they’re Algeria, Argentina, England, we’re going to see people here,” Fewins said. Argentina and England may be based in Kansas City, he said, but they also have some of the biggest fan bases in the sport, so Lawrence should be prepared to welcome their supporters, as well.

Kansas City will be hosting six soccer games from June 16 through July 11. The first one, 8 p.m. June 16, is between Argentina and Algeria.

There are some big issues the City of Lawrence is working through that have been discussed before, like transportation and accommodations for the many guests. Fewins said that it would be important to improve the city’s walkability and bikeability, because many of the guests might not have access to cars. And he said that he and Planning and Development Services Director Jeff Crick were working on options for travelers staying in RVs. It’s important to anticipate potential problems before they arise, Fewins said.

“Some folks are probably going to show up here and say, ‘Oh, I can pitch a tent in the yard,'” he said. “That’s not really something we’re after, but how do we get ahead of that?”

But city crews have also been doing a lot of smaller-scale work that isn’t being talked about as much.

“Lot of sidewalk work, lot of curb work, some paving, certainly everything’s going to get painted,” he said. “… So, just a lot of that talk right now.”

Some tweaks will be needed to make sure certain essential services can run smoothly with thousands of extra guests in town.

For example, police will need help getting to where they’re going more efficiently. For that, Fewins said, the city is planning to give police the same kind of “preemption” at traffic lights that the fire department has, “where if their lights are on, the lights turn green for them.”

“Police has never had that,” he said. “They’re going to have it for this event, just to keep them moving.”

The city will also need to look at its garbage and recycling collection methods.

“If we had recycle containers downtown, if we had additional trash receptacles, how often do we have to empty those? Who’s going to do it?” Fewins asked.

And then there are cosmetic touches and polish, he said, such as cleaning alleys, using “established plants” for landscaping that will look good when guests arrive, even thinking about “what do our dumpster enclosures look like?”

The city has left some of its downtown Christmas lights up – “We took a few colors down, but they’re there,” Fewins said. And there are conversations about removing some graffiti, but not necessarily all of it; some of it, he said, “looks better than a gray block on the side of a building.”

“Trying to be clean, best foot forward, but still be Lawrence is part of the juggle,” Fewins said.

As for the timing, Fewins said the city hopes to have all of these little improvements ready by mid-May, or at the latest by the time the Lawrence Busker Festival rolls around on May 23.

“We’re planning to get Lawrence set up for that and carry it through there,” he said.

You can find more information about the city’s World Cup preparations on the Lawrence 2026 website, lawrence2026.com.