Interstate and Highway Fuel Station Feasibility Studies

An interstate or highway fuel station is defined by where it sits, not by what it sells: an interchange or highway frontage site whose customers are passing through as often as they live nearby. The format overlaps travel centers at one end and ordinary branded or independent stores at the other. Its earnings model leans harder on gallons than a town-center store does, because the interchange delivers traffic that a neighborhood cannot, and because highway customers compare prices on signs before they exit.

The research found no published revenue for Buc-ee's or any other megasite operator, so the per-store benchmark has to come from a public company. Murphy USA is the one the research uses. Its stores sold 235,751 retail gallons each per month in 2025 ¹. Its total fuel contribution was 30.7 cents a gallon in 2025 against 30.5 cents in 2024 ¹, and its retail fuel margin was 28.1 cents, flat on the year ². Inside, each store earned $41,134 of merchandise margin a month at a unit margin of 20.2% ¹. That is a volume model: thin cents on a very large number of gallons, with a store built around speed rather than food.

For a lender the Murphy figures are a ceiling check, not a target. An SBA-size interchange store with fewer positions and a less known name should not be projected at Murphy's throughput without a traffic count and a capture analysis that get it there. Big-box fuel sites, which NACS counted at 6,862 in December 2024 and which sell roughly twice the volume of a traditional retailer per store ¹⁷, set the low-price end of the same market. Where one sits near the exit, the study should show the subject's posted price against it. The pipeline at the volume end is still growing: Murphy guided to as many as 50 new stores for 2025 and opened 29 in the fourth quarter alone ³.

The largest interstate operators are still adding sites, but their results show the same margin squeeze a single store faces. Pilot ran 675 travel centers and 82 fuel-only sites at the end of 2025, two fewer travel centers and five more fuel-only sites than a year earlier ²³²⁴, while its revenue fell from $46,891 million to $42,198 million and its pre-tax earnings fell 69.1% to $190 million ²³. The decline runs back further: Berkshire reported $51,739 million for 2023, a year that counts only from January 31, when it began consolidating Pilot ²³. Pilot still sold about 10.9 billion gallons in 2025, plus about 900 million gallons through joint ventures, and 663 of its locations are company-owned, with the other 94 held in unconsolidated joint ventures ²³. For an independent at the same exit, that is a competitor whose volume and balance sheet do not depend on one interchange. Love's reached 668 locations in 42 states ²⁵, opened 18 of the 20 sites it targeted in 2025 with 1,408 new truck spaces ²⁶, and set a $700 million plan for 2026 covering 20 new locations and 35 remodels ²⁵. Getty Realty's management describes the top three operators as owning about 30% of travel centers ²⁸, and NATSO's directory lists 2,279 locations ²⁷; the rest of the corridor belongs to regional chains and independents, the borrowers an SBA or USDA lender is most likely to see.

Investors' numbers set the value side. Service Properties Trust leases 175 travel centers to BP's TA under five master leases running to 2033 ²⁹, at a minimum rent of $254.0 million a year with 2% annual increases set when BP bought TA ³⁰, and rent coverage on those leases ran from 1.05x to 1.35x at the end of 2025 ³¹. SVC's 2025 annual report carries $2,254,950 thousand of investment and $180,329 thousand of annual minimum rent on the TA sites, and $1,015,156 thousand and $83,933 thousand on the Petro sites ³⁴; rent set against the landlord's cost is the yield an investor accepts for an interstate location, and it is the test a sale-leaseback buyer will apply to a borrower's site. Getty Realty bought its first four travel centers in 2025 for $47.1 million ³², and a franchised TA under construction at Laurel, Mississippi carries a budget of $15 million to $20 million ³³. For a lender, the coverage range is the useful benchmark: even master leases guaranteed by an investment-grade parent carry thin coverage at the weaker interstate locations, so a single-site borrower's projected coverage should be read against that range rather than against a national average.

SBA's list of special purpose examples includes gas stations ¹⁴, so an interchange store under 504 carries a borrower contribution of 15%, or 20% for a new business, against a coverage floor of 1.15x ¹⁴. A new store under 7(a) reaches 1.15x within two years, and the purchase of an operating interchange store is tested at 1.25x on the seller's historical cash flow ¹⁴. The loan rules make a study discretionary: 13 CFR 120.160(b): SBA may require professional appraisals, a survey, or a feasibility study ¹⁵. The SBA 7(a) and 504 practice page shows the file structure we deliver.

Rates are set at pricing, and the published quotes are broker marketing. One broker listed an indicative 504 fixed rate of 6.95%, a 7(a) variable rate of 7.00% and loan-to-value up to 90% on special purpose loans on October 3, 2026 ¹²; a gas station page from the same broker family showed a 7(a) variable rate of 6.75% in August ¹³. A study should model the lender's term sheet, not a quote, and show coverage at a rate above it.

Two things set interchange files apart. First, schedule: an interchange often needs DOT access permits and sometimes off-site road work, and the coverage test in Year 2 assumes the store opened on time. Second, rural eligibility: an interchange outside the limits of any large city may qualify for USDA's Business and Industry guarantee, which is why our Hankamer, Texas travel center case is financed through USDA rather than SBA. The USDA Rural Development practice page covers those rules.

The Opelika, Alabama case is the acquisition of an operating branded store in Opelika on the I-85 corridor. Its census follows the interstate rather than a circle: 24-hour stations, a RaceTrac travel-center format, a QuikTrip that opened in late 2025 and a Circle K, with a Buc-ee's further down the corridor at Auburn. It shows the change-of-ownership test on a corridor where the competition is still arriving, and why a seller's history can predate the newest rival.

The Cartersville, Georgia case in the I-75 Exit 296 trade area is the new-build version. Its hypothetical store has no interstate frontage or visibility, in a trade area already served by a Pilot and a TA travel center and several branded stations. That case shows why a store that cannot win the through traveler has to be sized for commuters and local trade.

The two travel-center cases show the large end. The Terrell, Texas truck stop at I-20 and FM 148 is an SBA 504 file on highway corridor zoning, and the Hankamer, Texas travel center at I-10 and SH 61 is a USDA Business and Industry file on an unincorporated tract with no county zoning. Both sit closer to the truck stop and travel center asset class than to a car-oriented store. The Lockhart, Texas case is a useful contrast: it has no interstate exit, yet a Buc-ee's on I-10 at Luling sits inside its outer ring.

On our gas station and c-store hub, interstate fuel is a location rather than a format, so it overlaps every other subtype. A branded interchange store carries the supply agreement questions on the branded fuel page; a store that competes with travel-center restaurants needs the kitchen evidence on the foodservice-led page; and the chargers now appearing at megasites are covered on the EV charging page.