Case Study · Georgia · Gas Station & C-Store · SBA 7(a)
Gas Station Feasibility Study, Georgia — An SBA 7(a) Worked Case
This is how our independent feasibility study company and convenience store feasibility consultant team analyzed a new-build fuel-and-convenience project underwritten to an SBA 7(a) credit, from trade-area fuel and inside-sales demand through the debt-service coverage a lender must document. It is a worked example of the methodology, anonymized and composited rather than a specific client deal, set on a growing outer-ring metro Atlanta commuter corridor near an interstate interchange in Georgia.
A hard-corner pad on a growing Atlanta interstate corridor.
A sponsor came to our feasibility study company with a ground-up fuel-and-convenience project and an SBA 7(a) lender that needed the projected cash flow independently tested before it would commit. The subject is a hard corner of roughly 1.6 acres on a suburban commuter arterial that feeds an interstate interchange, carrying about 30,000 vehicles per day in a fast-growing outer-ring submarket of metro Atlanta. The build program is a 5,200-square-foot convenience store, 16 fueling positions across eight multi-product dispensers, and a co-branded quick-service restaurant (QSR) inside the store.
Because a gas station is a going-concern operating business rather than a passive real-estate play, the lender's question is not “what is the dirt worth” but “can this specific site generate the gallons, inside sales, and margin to service this specific loan.”4 Gas stations are also named special-purpose properties under SBA rules, which is precisely the condition that turns a discretionary feasibility study into an expected one on a ground-up deal.10 Our scope was the independent demand, capture, competition, and debt-service analysis that supports that credit — the same work a convenience store feasibility consultant brings to a credit committee.
Trade-area fuel and convenience demand.
The demand read starts with people and trips, not a capture rate applied to a traffic count. The three-mile ring holds roughly 38,000 residents growing about 3 percent a year, layered over strong peak-directional commuter flow toward the interstate.
Fuel volume is the primary value driver, and it correlates with, but is not set by, raw traffic. The national average fueling site sells about 2,500 gallons a day, but the distribution is enormous: top-quartile sites move more than 150,000 gallons a month.6 A new, high-capacity 16-position forecourt on a 30,000-vehicle corridor feeding an interstate interchange, with a growing residential base and a QSR draw, supports a stabilized throughput near 2.2 million gallons a year — roughly 185,000 gallons a month, a defensible top-quartile placement rather than a flat percentage of cars passing by. The inside story matters more to the credit than the pump: about 57 percent of fuel customers come inside, the average convenience transaction ran roughly $12.13 in 2025, and prepared food carries the richest margins in the box.4 On the trade-area population, commuter capture, and store format, the model supports stabilized inside sales near $2.3 million a year and a foodservice/QSR line around $0.60 million.
| Demand driver | Basis | Supported figure |
|---|---|---|
| Trade-area population (3-mi ring) | ~38,000 residents, growing ~3%/yr | Rising captive base |
| Corridor traffic | ~30,000 vehicles/day, peak-directional to interstate | Primary trip capture |
| Stabilized fuel throughput | Top-quartile suburban site (>150,000 gal/mo basis)6 | ≈ 2.2M gallons/yr |
| Inside-store sales | ~57% inside conversion; ~$12.13 avg ticket4 | ≈ $2.3M/yr |
| Foodservice / QSR co-brand | Prepared-food and branded daypart capture | ≈ $0.60M/yr sales |
Volume and inside-sales logic grounded in NACS fuel-volume distribution and in-store economics; see sources 4 and 6. Deal figures are illustrative of the engagement type.
An undersupplied corner as rooftops outrun forecourts.
Six competing stations sit within three miles, one of them within a mile, but the newest rooftops in this exurban Atlanta submarket are arriving faster than new fuel permits. The corridor is adding households more quickly than it is adding forecourt capacity.
| Competitor | Brand tier | Forecourt | Distance | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor A | Major-brand | 8 MPD | 0.7 mi | Nearest; dated canopy, no QSR |
| Competitor B | Regional chain | 10 MPD | 1.3 mi | Strong foodservice co-brand |
| Competitor C | Major-brand | 6 MPD | 1.8 mi | Cross-corridor, off-peak side |
| Competitor D | Unbranded independent | 4 MPD | 2.1 mi | Price-led, thin inside sales |
| Competitor E | Major-brand | 8 MPD | 2.5 mi | Grocery-anchored pad |
| Competitor F | Regional chain | 6 MPD | 2.8 mi | Aging site, trailing-edge |
Competitive set surveyed for the engagement; anonymized. Announced and permitted supply was scanned, not just the standing set, consistent with institutional site-selection practice.
Only one competitor sits inside a mile, and it carries a dated canopy and no foodservice program — a weak defender against a new 16-position forecourt with a co-branded QSR and a growing captive base behind it. The nearest genuine foodservice competitor (Competitor B) is more than a mile away, on the far side of the corridor's peak-directional flow. A rigorous study does not stop at the standing set: it scans announced and permitted supply so the capture forecast is not quietly overstated by new forecourts the trailing data cannot yet see.4 Here the read is a genuinely undersupplied corner — rooftop growth in the northern exurbs is outpacing new fuel permitting, and the subject fills the gap rather than splitting a saturated trade area.
Georgia macro: a growth tailwind with two cost watch-items.
The state backdrop is a tailwind for a commuter-corridor fuel site, tempered by energy cost and storm-driven insurance. Metro Atlanta holds roughly 6.4 million residents — more than half the state — and its northern exurbs are among the fastest-growing counties in the country.
Georgia is among the faster-growing large states, and the demand engine sits exactly where this site does. Metro Atlanta added roughly 75,000 residents in the Vintage 2024 estimates, every core county grew in 2024–2025 — led by Fulton at about +18,800 and Gwinnett at about +15,200 — and the outer-ring exurbs grew faster still, with Dawson up 6.4 percent and Jackson up 5.8 percent over 2020–2024.1 That rooftop growth on the outer ring is the demand a new forecourt needs. Decisively for retail supply, Georgia's Certificate-of-Need regime applies to health-care capacity, not to fuel and convenience retail, so forecourt supply is set by the market rather than a permit gate — and the state carries no local income taxes and a flat 4.99 percent income tax for 2026.2
The financing channel is deep. Georgia ranked about fifth nationally in SBA 7(a) dollar volume in calendar 2025 at roughly $1.35 billion, all 159 counties are served by a single SBA Georgia District Office in Atlanta that is also SBA Region IV headquarters, and Live Oak Bank — the number-one national 7(a) lender by dollar volume in fiscal 2025 — works alongside Georgia franchises such as Ameris, Synovus, and Truist.3 The SBA's combined 7(a)-plus-504 ceiling also rose to $10 million effective July 4, 2026, enlarging bankable deal size.3
Two cost realities cut the other way and belong in any honest Georgia pro forma. First is power: Georgia Power's 2025 Integrated Resource Plan projects about 8,500 megawatts of load growth by 2030, and on December 19, 2025 the Public Service Commission approved 9,985 megawatts of new generation, so a canopy-lit, cooler-and-foodservice site should underwrite a rising utility line even with base rates frozen through 2028.14 Second is storm-driven insurance: Hurricane Helene crossed Georgia in September 2024 and produced catastrophic inland damage — roughly 1.3 million Georgia Power customers lost power and one Atlanta portfolio reported a 35 percent premium jump — so a defensible study prices inland wind and a higher insurance load, not just coastal surge.13
Why the corner captures the corridor.
Household income, daytime population, and growth all point the same direction, and the intersection geometry converts that demand into trips.
The three-mile trade area carries a median household income near $82,000 — comfortably above the level at which foodservice and premium-fuel attach rates strengthen — and a daytime population inflated by the outbound morning commute toward Atlanta and the inbound evening return. The growth rate near 3 percent a year means trailing Census counts understate the captive base, a common exurban distortion a careful study corrects for rather than extrapolates.1
Geometry does the rest. The subject occupies the hard corner on the going-home side of a signalized intersection that feeds the interstate ramp, where peak-directional evening traffic decelerates and turns — the highest-conversion position on the corridor for both fuel and the impulse inside-sales and foodservice trip. A 16-position forecourt clears queues that would spill at a smaller site, and the QSR co-brand lengthens dwell time and lifts the inside ticket. The nearest competitor's dated, food-less site cannot match that capture, which is why the model credits the subject with a top-quartile throughput placement rather than an average one.
The SBA 7(a) structure.
Total project cost lands at $5.35 million. The 7(a) program can finance the business and the real estate in a single loan, which is why an owner-operated, special-purpose station routes here rather than to a fixed-asset-only 504.
| Cost component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Land (~1.6-acre hard corner) | $1.15M |
| Site work & utilities | $0.72M |
| Building shell (5,200 sf) | $1.18M |
| Fuel systems, canopy & MPDs | $0.82M |
| C-store FF&E | $0.55M |
| QSR build-out | $0.36M |
| Soft costs & contingency | $0.37M |
| Working capital & fees | $0.20M |
| Total project cost | $5.35M |
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| SBA 7(a) loan (85%) | $4.55M |
| Borrower equity injection (15%) | $0.80M |
| Term / amortization | 10-year term / 25-year amortization |
| Illustrative rate | ~10.25% (Prime + 2.75%) |
| Annual debt service | ≈ $506k |
Structure per SBA 7(a) conventions under SOP 50 10 8; owner-occupancy 60% for new construction; single-loan 7(a) cap $5M. See sources 10 and 11.
The equity injection sits at 15 percent, not the baseline 10 percent, and that is deliberate: SBA policy escalates the required injection for projects that are both special-purpose and, as a ground-up build, effectively a start-up, commonly to 15 to 20 percent or more.11 At $4.55 million the loan also sits under the $5 million single-loan 7(a) ceiling, so the structure works within one 7(a) facility without a companion loan.10 On a 25-year amortization at an illustrative 10.25 percent (Prime plus 2.75), annual debt service is about $506,000 — the number the projected coverage has to clear. The study exists to support exactly that: the debt-service coverage the lender must document to approve the credit, tested against an independent read of demand rather than the sponsor's own projection.
Feasible and bankable, on coverage the credit can document.
The stabilized model builds gross profit from three engines — fuel, merchandise, and foodservice — nets operating expense, and carries the coverage to the SBA floor and beyond.
| Line | Basis | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel gross profit | 2.2M gal × ~$0.36/gal gross margin5 | ≈ $792k |
| Inside-store gross profit | $2.3M sales × ~32% merchandise margin7 | ≈ $736k |
| Foodservice / QSR gross profit | ~$0.60M sales × ~50% margin7 | ≈ $300k |
| Total gross profit | Fuel + inside + foodservice | ≈ $1.83M |
| Operating expenses | Labor, card fees, utilities, R&M, insurance, property tax, G&A | ≈ ($1.09M) |
| Net operating income (NOI) | Gross profit less operating expense | ≈ $734k |
Fuel line uses a through-cycle gross retail margin near $0.36/gal (before store operating cost), consistent with OPIS/NACS; net fuel margin runs far thinner after the operating expenses shown. See sources 4, 5, and 7.
| Year | Stage | NOI | Debt-service basis | DSCR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Ramp (interest-only bridge) | ~$490k | Interest-only ~$466k | 1.05 |
| Year 2 | Building | ~$638k | Full amortizing ~$506k | 1.26 |
| Year 3 | Stabilized | ~$734k | Full amortizing ~$506k | 1.45 |
DSCR computed as NOI divided by the period debt-service obligation. See source 11 for the ~1.15x coverage convention.
The stabilized 1.45x coverage is the figure the lender documents, and it clears the SBA's roughly 1.15x floor with real headroom.11 By Year 2 the project already covers fully amortizing debt service at 1.26x. The Year 1 figure of 1.05x is intentionally at the ramp threshold — it is the ramp year — which is exactly why the structure carries an interest-only bridge through stabilization: the bridge covers the ramp, and permanent, fully amortizing coverage is measured once the site reaches its supportable throughput. Modeling mature-store foodservice margins in Year 1, or best-in-class capture on day one, is one of the most common ways these pro formas fail review; the ramp here is deliberately graded.4
On the equity side, the $0.80 million injection earns growing levered free cash flow — roughly $24,000 in the interest-only ramp year, building to about $130,000 a year once stabilized and net of a fuel-equipment capital reserve for tanks, dispensers, and canopy. The exit is valued on a going-concern basis, not a leased-fee cap rate: a station is an owner-operated business, and capitalizing a Year-10 stabilized NOI near $0.73 million at a going-concern overall rate around 11 percent — within the 8-to-12 percent range the market applies to owner-operated stations — implies a gross sale near $6.6 million, and roughly $2.4 million of net equity after selling costs and the outstanding SBA balance.9 Holding fuel volume roughly flat, consistent with durable-but-flat-to-declining gasoline demand rather than a rising-gallons assumption,8 the blended result is an illustrative levered equity IRR of about 20 percent over a 10-year hold.
Verdict: financially feasible and bankable. On independently derived demand, a stabilized 1.45x DSCR, and a ~20% levered equity IRR, the projections support the SBA 7(a) credit.
Independent demand, capture, competition, and DSCR stress.
The engagement was scoped the way a credit committee reads it. As an independent feasibility consultant, our role is to test the sponsor's projection against the market, not to restate it — the value of the deliverable is precisely that it carries no stake in the outcome. We derived fuel throughput from trip origin, corridor traffic, and the competitive set, then placed it within a defensible volume quartile rather than applying a flat capture rate to a traffic count. Inside-sales and foodservice were modeled on a graded ramp at through-cycle margins, not a capitalized peak.
The coverage analysis was then stress-tested. We ran the debt-service coverage against volume and margin downside — the two variables a station is most exposed to — to confirm the credit still holds when gallons or fuel margin compress, and we layered in Georgia's power and insurance cost pressure on the expense line. One scope boundary is worth stating plainly: as the feasibility consultant, we reference, but do not perform, the Phase I environmental site assessment; underground-storage-tank condition is a separate environmental professional's engagement that runs in parallel to the study.12 That combination — independent demand, capture, competition, and a stressed DSCR — is what lets the lender rely on the file.
Underwriting a Georgia gas station for an SBA loan? Start with the feasibility study.
Feasibility Study Company prepares independent gas station and convenience store feasibility studies for SBA 7(a) and 504 credits in Georgia, built to the coverage standard your lender must document. A methodology briefing walks through the demand, capture, competition, and DSCR analysis behind a case like this one, calibrated to your corridor and format.
Request a methodology briefingData sources and dates.
The deal figures are illustrative of the engagement type; the market data that grounds each dimension is real and sourced, drawn from our standing Georgia, Gas Station & C-Store, and SBA 7(a) & 504 analyses and the primary authorities they cite.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates (metro Atlanta ~6.4 million and eighth-largest U.S. metro, adding ~75,000 residents; exurban county change including Dawson +6.4% and Jackson +5.8% over 2020–2024), released 2025, as compiled in the firm's Georgia market analysis; Atlanta Regional Commission metro county population change (2025), each core county growing, led by Fulton ~+18,800 and Gwinnett ~+15,200.
- Georgia Department of Community Health, Office of Health Planning, and O.C.G.A. Title 31, Chapter 6 (Certificate of Need applies to health-care capacity, not retail fuel and convenience, so forecourt supply is market-set); Georgia Department of Revenue / Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, HB 463 flat 4.99% state income tax for 2026 and no local income taxes.
- U.S. Small Business Administration, Georgia District Office directory (single Atlanta district office serving all 159 counties; also SBA Region IV headquarters); GoSBA Loans analysis of SBA FOIA loan data (Georgia #5 nationally in 7(a) dollar volume, CY2025, ~$1.35 billion across ~2,047 loans); Coleman Report / Live Oak Bank fiscal 2025 national 7(a) dollar-volume ranking; SBA Policy Notice 5000-879058 (effective July 4, 2026), combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap of $10 million.
- NACS State of the Industry data (released April 15, 2026): in-store sales $341.2 billion (23rd consecutive annual increase); fuel 65.0% of sales but 38.8% of gross profit; foodservice 28.5% of in-store sales and 38.9% of in-store gross profit; average convenience transaction ~$12.13; roughly 57% of fuel customers come inside; institutional site-selection practice scanning announced/permitted supply.
- NACS, “Who Makes Money Selling Gas” (2025), citing OPIS Retail Fuel Watch: gross retail fuel margin ~35.7 cents per gallon, falling to ~13 cents net after retail operating costs; Raymond James / OPIS five-year average 39.2 cents (gasoline) and 53.3 cents (diesel).
- NACS, “Who Sells America's Fuel” (January 2026): the average fueling site sells ~2,500 gallons per day (~82,000 per month); bottom-quartile sites under 40,000 gallons/month, top-quartile over 150,000; convenience stores move an estimated 80% of U.S. fuel.
- CT Acquisitions, 2026 Buyer's Guide (citing NACS 2025 data): well-run merchandise operations at 30–35% gross margin and foodservice above 50%, against low-single-digit net fuel margins; operator-level net profit of 3 to 7 cents per gallon; new-build cost context.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy (April 2026): U.S. motor gasoline consumption 8.9 million barrels per day in 2025 (down 1% year over year, 4% below 2019); forecast 2026–2027 declines driven principally by fleet fuel economy, not EV adoption.
- Matthews 2025 Cap Rate Recap, STAX Real Estate (2026), and Retail Petroleum Consultants / gasvaluation.com: convenience/gas NNN cap rates from the low-to-mid 5% range (credit) to 7%+ (smaller operators); owner-operator going-concern multiples of ~2.5x–4.0x EBITDA (business alone) or ~8x (business plus premium real estate); going-concern overall rates of 8–12%; the warning that a leased-fee cap rate is not going-concern value.
- U.S. Small Business Administration SOP 50 10 8 (effective June 1, 2025) and 13 CFR 120.160(b): a feasibility study is discretionary but expected for special-purpose properties and ground-up projects; owner-occupancy of 51% (existing) or 60% (new construction); 7(a) can finance the business plus real estate in one loan; single-loan 7(a) cap of $5 million.
- SBA SOP 50 10 8; Bay Street Lending / Growth Corp: gas stations named special-purpose properties; equity injection commonly 15–20%+ for special-purpose and start-up projects; SBA/504 DSCR convention of roughly 1.15x or higher; change-of-ownership going-concern appraisals over $250,000 performed by a Certified General appraiser allocating value across land, building, equipment, and intangibles.
- SBA environmental policy (SOP 50 10 8, Chapter 5, Section E) and ASTM E1527-21: gas stations treated as a Special Use Facility; a Phase I ESA runs ~$2,500–$6,000 and a Phase II can exceed $50,000; the feasibility author references but does not perform the environmental site assessment, which is a separate Environmental Professional's engagement.
- FOX5 Atlanta / National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Helene Georgia impact (September 2024): catastrophic inland damage, Augusta/Richmond County losses exceeding $500 million, ~1.3 million Georgia Power customers without power; Partners Real Estate, 35% Atlanta-portfolio insurance-premium increase (2024).
- Georgia Public Service Commission / Georgia Recorder / Utility Dive, 2025 Georgia Power Integrated Resource Plan (~8,500 MW load growth by 2030) and December 19, 2025 generation certification of 9,985 MW, base rates frozen through 2028.