Express Car Wash Feasibility Study in Seguin, Texas: A New Tunnel on an SBA 504 Loan

Seguin can absorb another express tunnel, but only one priced into the middle of a crowded menu and only on a pad whose flood zone and zoning are confirmed. The town is the growth story of the San Antonio to Austin corridor: 41,048 residents in July 2025, up 39.3% from an April 2020 base of 29,460 [1]. The Vintage 2024 estimate for July 2024 was 38,789, up 7.4% on the year before [2], and the city's economic development corporation counted 27 subdivisions under construction and more than 16,000 dwelling units in the pipeline in 2024 [3]. Car wash demand follows rooftops and commuters, and Seguin is adding both.

The supply side is just as real. Four conveyor washes operate inside the 3-mile trade area this study uses, and two of them, Cosmic Express on SH 46 and Cosmic Express on Eastwood Drive, were announced in 2022 with 130-foot tunnels [11] and had site plans in city review in April 2023 [13]. Finish Line Express and Pic-n-Pac Express Wash work the SH 123 Bypass retail strip and publish full price menus [15][16][17]. Nationally, the industry is digesting its own build-out: the chief transformation officer of Zips told the bankruptcy court in February 2025 that upwards of 900 new car wash sites had opened each year for five years [20], and the International Carwash Association described 2026 as a year of recalibration rather than contraction [25].

What decides this loan is not whether Seguin has demand but whether a fifth tunnel can sign enough unlimited members against four incumbents. The study underwrites a membership ramp that stays below the fleet averages of the large operators, a blended member price inside the posted local range, and retail washes priced at Finish Line's second tier. On those inputs the project earns $570,912 of net operating income in Year 3 on $1,454,600 of revenue, and coverage clears the 504 floor in Year 2 under either structure. What the opening request fails is the equity tier the program sets, and that test is a minimum, not a matter of coverage.

Three findings carry into the lender conditions. First, the pad's zoning and flood zone are unconfirmed: the district must permit a car wash, and the flood zone must be confirmed on FEMA's map before the loan is sized. Second, Cosmic Express, which runs two of the four tunnels, does not publish its plan prices [10][12], so the subject's price position against the town's largest operator is unverified. Third, Year 1 does not cover debt service in the model, which is normal for a ramping tunnel but means the sponsor needs liquidity or an interest reserve beyond the equity.

For readers comparing markets, the express car wash hub sets out the format's economics nationally; this page applies them to one Guadalupe County site. The San Antonio metro page covers the wider region Seguin belongs to, and the Texas state page covers statewide rules and costs.

The census below lists every express or conveyor wash the research could confirm on an operator's own website. Each row links that page. Assessor parcel numbers, land areas and 2025 tax bills were not retrieved for any competitor, because the Guadalupe Appraisal District portal could not be queried; they are a lender condition. Distances from the subject were not measured beyond the trade-area radius, so the table says "same node" or "within 3 miles" rather than inventing mileage.

Two sites stay out of the table because no operator page confirms them. A Zips Car Wash on the SH 123 Bypass appears on Yelp as closed in April 2026, with a reviewer saying it was sold to Finish Line [18]; directory addresses suggest it is the same lot Finish Line now operates, but no primary source confirms the sale. Its former parent filed for Chapter 11 on February 5, 2025 with $653.9 million of funded debt, more than 260 locations and about 625,000 unlimited members, and moved to close 41 sites, about 16% of its fleet [19]. A Laser Wash on West Court Street is said on a community forum to be planning a rebuild; that claim is unverified hearsay and the study gives it no weight. Cosmic Express also lists a South Austin site as coming soon [10], which is outside the trade area.

The posted menus define the price band the subject has to sit in. Finish Line's top unlimited plan, $29, is below Pic-n-Pac's middle plan, $30, and Finish Line's entry plan, $14, is the cheapest subscription in town [16][17]. Pic-n-Pac bundles a fuel discount with its top wash [17], an advantage a standalone tunnel cannot match. The study's blended member price of $24 a month assumes most members buy a middle plan priced between those two operators. The gap in the census is Cosmic: the closest rival, with the newest equipment and the largest vacuum plaza, does not post prices, and its plan menu is the first thing a lender should pull.

No new car wash permits for 2025 or 2026 were found in city records or local news, and the Planning and Zoning Commission's 2025 agendas, which run from January 14 to December 9, were not reviewed item by item [40]. The two Cosmic sites were the last visible pipeline: the city listed both site plans in review in April 2023 [13]. A lender should treat the pipeline as unconfirmed until those agendas are read.

Revenue has two lines, and the first one carries the loan. Unlimited plan revenue is average active members times the blended monthly price times twelve. Retail revenue is single washes times an average ticket. Prices are held flat for five years; any increase is upside the model does not count.

Members. The study ramps from 3,200 average active members in the stabilized year, with a lower count in the first two years. Three public benchmarks frame it. Mister Car Wash ended 2025 with about 2.3 million Unlimited Wash Club members across 548 locations, and members produced 76% of its wash sales, up from 74% in 2024 [27]. Zips reported about 625,000 members across more than 260 locations when it filed in February 2025 [19]. A software vendor's panel found that sites with more than 4,000 members convert 11.1% of retail customers to members, against 2.4% at sites under 2,000 [38]. The subject's stabilized count sits between the two chains' fleet averages; a lender can compare it directly by dividing each chain's members by its locations. In this model members produce most of the revenue by Year 3 but a smaller share of wash sales than at Mister, because four incumbents have already signed the town's earliest adopters.

Member price. $24 a month is a blend, not a plan price. Finish Line's plans run from $14 to $29 and Pic-n-Pac's from $20 to $40 [16][17]; most members of a new tunnel take a middle plan, and a blend near the low middle of the combined range leaves room for discounting at opening. Mister's annual report states the value of a member in two ways, more than four times and about seven times the spend of a retail customer, in different sections of the same filing [27]; the inconsistency is a reminder that member economics need the lender's own scrutiny.

Retail washes and ticket. The model assumes retail volume grows slowly while members grow quickly, which matches the industry trend: the same vendor panel reported same-store sales up 5.7% in the third quarter of 2025, with membership revenue up 10% and retail down 3% [38]. The $13 average ticket equals Finish Line's second single-wash tier and sits between Pic-n-Pac's $10 and $15 washes [15][17].

Ramp check. Franchise disclosure data give the only public ramp curve. In calendar 2024 Tommy's Express first-year sites averaged $1,093,264 in gross sales (median $995,079), and older cohorts averaged $1,603,302, $1,876,137, $2,028,912 and $2,204,358; the all-outlet quartiles were $1,541,308, $1,866,787 and $2,265,150 [31]. The model's $1,012,400 in Year 1 and $1,454,600 in Year 3 sit below those cohort averages, the discount for entering a town that already has four tunnels. Mister says a new greenfield takes about three full years to reach average unit volume [27], which is why the model treats Year 3 as stabilized.

Total project cost is $5,342,093. Every line is an assumption: land at a per-foot level set between two 2026 Seguin asks, and the rest built from published ranges. The 2025 Tommy's Express disclosure puts construction of its 130-foot model at $2,056,978 to $3,930,750, with the building structure at $803,411 to $853,190, the conveyor at $197,312 to $252,659, wash equipment at $218,505 to $257,130 and soft costs at $107,563 to $582,000 [30]. A Texas contractor quotes tunnel equipment packages at $1.4 million to $2.1 million for 2026 [33], and a state-filed estimate for a 4,696 square foot express wash building in San Antonio was $1.25 million [34]. The model's building and equipment lines sit inside those ranges.

Costs are still moving. Prices for inputs to new nonresidential construction rose 8.9% in the year to August 2026, with steel mill products up 23.4% and aluminum mill shapes up 27.3%, and 55% of contractors surveyed reported a project cancelled, postponed or scaled back in the prior six months [37]. A tunnel is steel and stainless intensive, so the contingency inside the soft-cost line is not generous.

The cost also runs ahead of value. In April 2026 net-leased car wash properties were listed at an average price of $5.11 million with an average asking cap rate of 6.21% across 190 listings, with average net operating income above $318,000 [35], and Mister sold one express site in a sale-leaseback for $5.0 million in the third quarter of 2025 [29]. Texas car wash listings averaged a 6.36% asking cap rate in August 2025 [36]. A finished tunnel's real estate, in other words, trades for less than this project costs, and the gap is the business value the appraisal must support. Because a car wash is special purpose collateral, the appraisal needs an appraiser experienced with the property type, and the lender should expect the business, not the real estate, to carry part of the value.

The pro forma runs on the restructured loan. Revenue climbs from $1,012,400 to $1,552,600 as members accumulate, while labor, chemicals and store costs move with revenue and property tax stays fixed. Net operating income is $356,974 in Year 1, $495,372 in Year 2 and $570,912 in Year 3. Year 1 cash flow after debt service is negative, so the sponsor's liquidity, not the projection, carries the first year.

Membership is the driver that most separates a healthy tunnel from a struggling one, so the break-even is solved on average active members in Year 3 with every other input held. Net operating income equals debt service at 1,757 members, 54.9% of the underwritten count, a cushion of 45.1%. Coverage stays at the 504 floor down to 2,147 members.

That cushion is reasonable for a stabilized year but it rests on the ramp being achieved. If the subject reaches its Year 2 member count a year late, Year 3 looks like Year 2, and the loan sits close to the floor for a second year. The break-even trap note explains why lenders should test break-even on the ramp, not only on the stabilized year.

The table lists each model input with its source number or, where no source gives the figure, the word assumption and the reasoning. The property tax rate and the debenture rate and term are sourced. Land, volumes, prices, cost lines, expense ratios and the bank rate are assumptions informed by the benchmarks cited in their reasoning; the land level cites the two Seguin asks it sits between.

Each condition below comes from an item the research could not find or could not confirm. Together they cover all 31 data points the research marked not found, grouped where one action closes several.

1. Flood. Pull the FEMA FIRM panel and zone for the pad, obtain an elevation certificate and a flood insurance quote, and confirm compliance with the City of Seguin flood ordinance.
2. Zoning. Confirm from the UDC land use matrix whether a car wash is permitted by right in the pad's district or needs a Specific Use or Conditional Use Permit, and the approval timeline.
3. Parcel, price and appraisal. Identify the parcel, its legal description and an executed contract price, and order an appraisal of the land; the land line is an assumption set between two 2026 asks, not the price of any parcel.
4. Utilities and fees. Identify the water, sewer, electric and gas providers, sewer capacity, any pretreatment rule for wash water, and impact and connection fees.
5. Traffic. Obtain the TxDOT annual average daily traffic count, station and year on SH 46 at the site, and confirm access under the I-10 frontage-road design.
6. Competitor prices. Obtain Cosmic Express's plan and single-wash prices for both Seguin sites, and Pic-n-Pac's tunnel length.
7. Competitor records. Pull Guadalupe Appraisal District parcel, land area and 2025 tax for each competitor, opening years for all four, and review counts or other utilization evidence.
8. Pipeline. Review the 2025 and 2026 Planning and Zoning agendas for car wash cases, confirm or rule out the Laser Wash rebuild, and confirm the Zips site's status and owner.
9. Trade area data. Order radius or drive-time demographics with median age and daytime employment, the Texas comparison column, truck volumes on SH 46, and seasonality and event data.
10. Costs and insurance. Obtain a contractor's bid, a construction cost index for the San Antonio area, an insurance quote covering wind, hail and flood, and the sales tax treatment and licenses for car wash services.
11. Assessment and rates. Confirm the assessment basis with the appraisal district and the adopted 2026 city, county and school rates; set the bank and debenture rates at pricing.
12. Program checks. Confirm citizenship of every direct and indirect owner, sponsor liquidity or an interest reserve for the Year 1 shortfall, a going-concern appraisal by an experienced appraiser, and SBA 504 lending history in Guadalupe County from the FOIA file; USDA rural, HUBZone and Opportunity Zone status were not found and should be checked if they affect pricing or fees.