Case Study · Maine · RV Park & Campground · USDA B&I
RV Park & Campground Feasibility Study, Maine — A USDA B&I Worked Case
This is how our independent feasibility study company and consultant team analyzed a new-build RV resort with cabins underwritten to a USDA Business & Industry guaranteed loan, from drive-market visitation and the seasonal occupancy curve through the debt-service coverage a lender and the Agency must document. It is a representative, anonymized worked example of the methodology — not a specific client deal — set in a rural coastal-Maine tourism corridor.
A ground-up RV resort on a coastal-Maine tourism corridor.
A sponsor came to our feasibility study company with a ground-up outdoor-hospitality project and a USDA Business & Industry lender that needed the projected cash flow independently tested before it would commit. The subject is a roughly 35-acre parcel on a two-lane tourism corridor that feeds the Midcoast and Downeast coast, in a rural town of well under 50,000 residents — the kind of place that qualifies as USDA-eligible rural territory across almost all of Maine.13 The build program is a 110-site resort: about 90 full-hookup RV sites sized for big-rig and 30/50-amp service, plus 20 rental cabins, a camp store and office, a pool and bathhouse, and family amenities.
Because an RV park is a going-concern operating business rather than passive real estate, the lender's question is not “what is the dirt worth” but “can this specific site generate the site-nights, cabin rentals, and margin to service this specific loan.”6 USDA is prescriptive about when that question must be answered independently: a B&I guaranteed loan greater than one million dollars to a new entity requires a feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant, evaluating the economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility of the project.1 Our scope was exactly that independent evaluation.
Representative and anonymized. Every figure below is illustrative of a typical engagement of this type; the site, corridor, and parties are composited, not a real named borrower, address, or completed transaction.
Drive-market visitation, concentrated in a short season.
The demand read starts with trips and visitation, not a flat occupancy applied to a site count. Coastal Maine is a drive-to leisure market feeding one of the most visited corridors in the Northeast, and the whole model turns on how that traffic distributes across the calendar.
The anchor is real and quantified. Acadia National Park recorded 4,079,318 recreational visits in 2025, a three percent increase over 2024, and that visitation concentrates hard into a July–August peak when many coastal properties draw their entire year.8 Statewide, Maine logged 12.36 million hotel room nights in 2024 at roughly 54 percent occupancy on an average 4.5-night trip — a headline that masks the peak concentration and winter closures that define Maine underwriting.9 National camping demand has normalized above pre-pandemic levels but stopped growing, with camping households at just over 52 million in 2025, and RV shipments settling to a 314,000-unit 2026 forecast after a 342,220 read in 2025; the correct posture is to underwrite to that normalization, not to 2020–2022 boom growth.34 Parks within a 30-to-60-minute drive of a major attraction consistently outperform remote locations on both occupancy and rate, which is the demand-driver test this corridor passes.15 On visitation, corridor traffic, and the cabin draw, the model supports a stabilized season occupancy near 60 percent and total stabilized revenue around $1.34 million — a defensible read of a proven drive market, not a flat percentage of the cars going by.
| Demand driver | Basis | Supported figure |
|---|---|---|
| Attraction visitation | Acadia 4.08M visits in 2025, +3%, July–August peak8 | Corridor draw |
| Operating season | ~160-night season, mid-May to late October | Peak-weighted nights |
| Stabilized season occupancy | ~60% blended; ~95% peak, lower shoulder6 | ≈ 8,600 RV site-nights |
| RV transient site revenue | 90 sites × ~$82 blended ADR6 | ≈ $708k/yr |
| Cabin rental revenue | 20 cabins × ~$179 ADR, longer shoulder | ≈ $376k/yr |
| Ancillary (store, firewood, activities) | ~19% of total; site rentals ~80%+6 | ≈ $254k/yr |
Occupancy and rate logic grounded in outdoor-hospitality operating norms and Maine visitation data; see sources 6, 8, and 9. Figures are illustrative of the engagement type.
A gap for modern full-hookup sites near the coast.
Six competing campgrounds sit within the drive market, but the standing supply skews older, tent-heavy, and short on big-rig full-hookup sites and cabins. The corridor draws more destination demand than the modern site inventory can absorb at peak.
| Competitor | Type | Sites | Distance | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Competitor A | Legacy family campground | 120 | 4 mi | Dated hookups, tent-heavy, no cabins |
| Competitor B | State park campground (public) | 90 | 8 mi | Demand generator; few full hookups |
| Competitor C | Franchise-affiliated (KOA-type) | 140 | 12 mi | Strong amenities; books out early |
| Competitor D | Waterfront RV park | 75 | 15 mi | Premium ADR; seasonal-lease heavy |
| Competitor E | Small independent | 45 | 9 mi | Thin amenities, no cabins |
| Competitor F | Wooded family campground | 100 | 18 mi | Tent/small-rig; limited big-rig access |
Competitive set surveyed for the engagement; anonymized. Public campgrounds are counted as demand generators, not direct competitors, consistent with outdoor-hospitality practice.
The nearest private competitor carries dated hookups and no cabins, and the strongest amenity park in the set is twelve miles out and books out early in peak season — both weak defenders against a new resort with modern big-rig full-hookup sites, 20 rental cabins, and a pool. Public campgrounds in the corridor, including the state park, function primarily as demand generators that pull visitors to the area rather than as direct rate competitors.6 A rigorous study does not stop at the standing set: it scans announced and permitted supply, because at least 4,100 new RV sites came on across the country between 2024 and early 2026 and localized oversupply is a real risk.2 Here the read is a genuinely undersupplied segment — modern full-hookup and cabin inventory near a proven attraction corridor — rather than a saturated trade area the subject would split.
Maine macro: strong demand, a hard labor constraint.
The state backdrop is a tailwind for a coastal drive-to resort, tempered by two Maine realities that decide operating feasibility: extreme seasonality and the tightest labor market in the country. A feasibility consultant who ignores either is writing a study that fails review.
Maine is really two economies — the affluent, growing southern and coastal corridor and the depopulating rural interior — with a distinct Midcoast and Downeast tourism zone, anchored by Acadia, that behaves differently again.8 The subject sits squarely in that tourism zone, where demand is real but the season is short. The single most important structural fact about the state is that it is the oldest in the nation, median age 44.9, with a population of 1,414,874 as of July 2025 that grows only through in-migration; that drives a binding workforce shortage of roughly 67 available workers for every 100 open jobs.1011 On the coast, second homes and short-term rentals have consumed the workforce housing stock, so a seasonal operation must prove it can actually staff its peak — the signature Maine failure is a revenue projection with no staffing plan behind it.
Cost is the offsetting reality. Maine's statewide minimum wage rose to $15.10 an hour on January 1, 2026, the state carries among the highest electricity costs in the nation and the highest heating-oil dependence of any state at roughly 52 percent of households, and lodging is taxed at 9 percent.12 Those load a seasonal operating pro forma with real expense, which is why the feasibility test turns on stabilized coverage under conservative occupancy rather than an optimistic peak run-rate. Capital access, by contrast, is a genuine advantage here: roughly 99 percent of Maine's land area is USDA-eligible rural territory, and the USDA Rural Development state office in Bangor routes the B&I, Community Facilities, and REAP credits that fund rural coastal projects.13
Why the corridor supports the resort.
Drive-market reach, attraction proximity, and the rural-eligibility test all point the same direction, and the site geometry converts that demand into bookable site-nights.
Maine is a drive-to market: the coast pulls leisure travelers from Greater Boston and the wider Northeast within a half-day's drive, and the subject sits inside the 30-to-60-minute attraction band that outperforms remote parks on both occupancy and rate.15 The host town's small year-round population is not the trade area; the trade area is the seasonal visitor base flowing through the corridor, which is why the model is built on visitation and competitor rate sheets rather than on resident counts. That same rural character is what makes the deal financeable: because only Portland, Bangor, and Lewiston fall outside USDA's rural designation, a coastal town of this size clears the population test cleanly and opens the B&I channel.13
Site geometry does the rest. Roughly 35 acres gives room for 90 big-rig-capable full-hookup pads on a sensible loop, 20 cabins set for privacy and a rate premium, and the pool, store, and bathhouse that lift both occupancy and length of stay. The cabins matter disproportionately: they carry a much higher nightly rate than an RV pad, they extend into the shoulder season when RV demand thins, and they broaden the guest base beyond RV owners to the far larger pool of drive-market families who do not own a rig. That combination is why the model credits the subject with modern-resort economics rather than the thinner numbers of the aging campgrounds it competes against.
The USDA B&I structure.
Total project cost lands at $5.0 million. USDA Business & Industry guarantees a lender loan for a rural, owner-operated business, which is why a going-concern RV resort in a small coastal town routes here rather than to an agency multifamily program that would exclude it outright.
| Cost component | Amount |
|---|---|
| Land (~35-acre coastal parcel) | $0.70M |
| Site work, roads & stormwater | $0.85M |
| Utilities (water, septic/sewer, 30/50-amp electric) | $0.70M |
| RV site improvements (90 full-hookup pads) | $0.72M |
| Cabins (20 units) | $1.05M |
| Amenities (pool, store/office, bathhouse) | $0.45M |
| FF&E, carts & signage | $0.22M |
| Soft costs, permitting, NEPA & contingency | $0.21M |
| Working capital, interest reserve & fees | $0.10M |
| Total project cost | $5.00M |
All-in development runs roughly $15,000–$50,000 per site; at ~$45,000 per site here, the top of that band reflects coastal land, cabins, and amenities. See source 7.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| USDA B&I guaranteed loan (75%) | $3.75M |
| Borrower equity injection (25%) | $1.25M |
| USDA guarantee to the lender | Up to 80% of the loan |
| Term / amortization | 25-year amortization, fully amortizing |
| Illustrative rate | ~8.5% |
| Annual debt service | ≈ $362k |
Structure per USDA B&I conventions under the OneRD rule (7 CFR Part 5001): guarantees up to 80% on loans up to $25M, rural communities of 50,000 or fewer, 25-year amortization. See sources 1 and 13.
The equity injection sits at 25 percent, above the thinnest bank minimums, and that is deliberate: a ground-up, special-purpose, seasonal business carries ramp and off-season risk that a lender covers with a larger borrower stake and a funded interest reserve.7 The $3.75 million loan sits far below the B&I program's $25 million ceiling, and because the guarantee reaches up to 80 percent of the loan, the lender's retained exposure is modest — the mechanism that makes rural credits like this bankable at all.1 On a 25-year amortization at an illustrative 8.5 percent, annual debt service is about $362,000 — the number the projected coverage has to clear. The study exists to support exactly that: the debt-service coverage the lender and the Agency must document, tested against an independent read of demand rather than the sponsor's own projection. It is worth stating plainly why this asset cannot take the agency route: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac manufactured-housing-community programs exclude pure RV resorts outright, which is precisely what pushes outdoor hospitality toward USDA, SBA, bank, and CMBS capital.14
Feasible and bankable, on a graded seasonal ramp.
The stabilized model builds revenue from three engines — RV sites, cabins, and ancillary — nets a realistic seasonal operating expense, and carries coverage past the USDA expectation once the resort ramps to stabilization.
| Line | Basis | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| RV transient site revenue | 90 sites, ~160-night season, ~60% occ, ~$82 ADR6 | ≈ $708k |
| Cabin rental revenue | 20 cabins, ~60% occ, ~$179 ADR, longer shoulder | ≈ $376k |
| Ancillary revenue | Store, firewood, propane, activities (~19% of total)6 | ≈ $254k |
| Total revenue | RV + cabins + ancillary | ≈ $1.34M |
| Operating expenses | Seasonal labor, utilities, R&M, taxes & insurance, marketing, G&A, reserves (~58%)7 | ≈ ($0.78M) |
| Net operating income (NOI) | Revenue less operating expense | ≈ $562k |
Operating expenses run 50–70% of revenue for RV parks; the ~58% ratio here reflects Maine's high labor and energy load. Reserves are held inside opex, so NOI is a post-reserve figure. See sources 6 and 7.
| Year | Stage | Season occ. | NOI | Debt service | DSCR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Ramp (reserve-supported) | ~40% | ~$344k | ~$362k | 0.95 |
| Year 2 | Building | ~52% | ~$471k | ~$362k | 1.30 |
| Year 3 | Stabilized | ~60% | ~$562k | ~$362k | 1.55 |
DSCR computed as NOI divided by the period debt-service obligation. Year 1’s sub-1.0 coverage is the ramp year, bridged by the funded interest reserve.
The stabilized 1.55x coverage is the figure the lender documents, and it clears the debt with real headroom on a going-concern credit that a credit committee will stress hard for seasonality. By Year 2 the resort already covers fully amortizing debt service at 1.30x. The Year 1 figure of 0.95x is intentionally below 1.0 — it is the ramp year, and RV resorts season over 18 to 24 months rather than filling on day one — which is exactly why the structure carries a funded interest reserve through stabilization: the reserve covers the ramp, and permanent, fully amortizing coverage is measured once the resort reaches its supportable occupancy.6 Sizing to a peak-season run-rate instead of a stabilized, conservative-occupancy DSCR is one of the most common ways these pro formas fail review; the ramp here is deliberately graded.7
On the equity side, the $1.25 million injection earns growing levered free cash flow — roughly breakeven in the reserve-supported ramp year, building to about $200,000 a year once stabilized and net of a capital reserve for pads, cabins, and amenities. The exit is valued on a going-concern basis, not a leased-fee cap rate: capitalizing a Year-10 stabilized NOI near $0.65 million at a going-concern overall rate near 10 percent — within the 8-to-12 percent range the market applies to RV parks, and consistent with the 9.3 percent average across 21 parks sold in 2024 — implies a gross sale near $6.5 million, and roughly $3.2 million of net equity after selling costs and the outstanding B&I balance.5 Holding revenue growth to a modest pace off the stabilized base, consistent with a normalized rather than a booming RV market,4 the blended result is an illustrative levered equity IRR of about 19 percent over a 10-year hold.
Verdict: financially feasible and bankable. On independently derived demand, a stabilized 1.55x DSCR, and a ~19% levered equity IRR, the projections support the USDA B&I credit.
The five USDA components, tested independently.
The engagement was scoped the way USDA and a credit committee read 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, which is the independence the regulation requires.1 We built to the five components 7 CFR Part 5001 names: whether the coastal economy and its visitation support the project (economic), whether demonstrable drive-market demand exists against the competitive supply (market), whether 110 sites and cabins can be built and operated on the parcel (technical), whether the operation services the guaranteed debt under tested assumptions (financial), and whether the ownership can actually staff and run a seasonal resort in the nation's tightest labor market (management).
The coverage analysis was then stress-tested. We ran the debt-service coverage against occupancy and rate downside — the two variables a seasonal park is most exposed to — and separated peak, shoulder, and off-season rather than blending a single annualized occupancy, the number most likely to overstate stabilized performance. One scope boundary is worth stating plainly: as the feasibility consultant, we reference, but do not perform, the NEPA environmental review and any Phase I site assessment, which run in parallel as a separate environmental professional's engagement.1 That combination — independent demand, seasonality, competition, a staffing test, and a stressed DSCR — is what lets the lender and the Agency rely on the file.
Underwriting a Maine RV park for a USDA loan? Start with the feasibility study.
Feasibility Study Company prepares independent RV park and campground feasibility studies for USDA B&I and SBA credits, built to the five components and the coverage standard your lender and the Agency must document. A methodology briefing walks through the demand, seasonality, 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 Maine, RV Park & Campground, and USDA Rural Development analyses and the primary authorities they cite.
- USDA Rural Development, Business & Industry (B&I) program under the OneRD Guaranteed Loan rule, 7 CFR Part 5001 (effective October 1, 2020): a feasibility study by an independent qualified consultant is required for a guaranteed loan over $1 million to a new entity or new activity, evaluating the economic, market, technical, financial, and management feasibility of the project; guarantees up to 80 percent on loans up to $25 million ($40 million select), rural communities of 50,000 or fewer, 25-year amortization, plus NEPA environmental review.
- Woodall's Campground Magazine, via RVBusiness (2024–2026): at least 4,146 new RV sites across 31 new parks and another 1,570 sites added to 36 existing parks between 2024 and early 2026, and localized new-supply risk in destination markets.
- KOA 2026 Camping & Outdoor Hospitality Report (12th annual; Cairn Consulting Group; released April 14, 2026), via SGB Media: over 52 million North American camping households in 2025 (52.2 million), versus 58.5 million (2022 peak) and 42.0 million (2019).
- RV Industry Association (RVIA) December 2025 shipment data and ITR Economics RV RoadSigns forecast (Summer 2026 edition): wholesale shipments of 600,240 units (2021 peak), 313,174 (2023 trough), 342,220 (2025), and a 314,000-unit 2026 median forecast, down 8.2 percent.
- Parks & Places, via RVBusiness (December 18, 2024): a 9.3 percent average cap rate across 21 parks sold in 2024, with average time-on-market of 8.8 months (up from 8.2 in 2023); broker and analytical going-concern ranges of 8 to 12 percent, with EV/EBITDA multiples generally 4.0 to 7.0x.
- RoverPass, RJourney, Feasibility-study-consultant.com, Financial Models Lab, and REIT disclosure (Equity LifeStyle Properties, Sun Communities), 2025–2026: transient nightly rates ($35–$90 standard, $60–$150+ premium destination), a typical independent-park annual site-nights occupancy of 60 to 70 percent (peaking near 100 percent in prime season), ancillary revenue of 10 to 25 percent with site rentals producing 80 percent-plus of gross income, and the public-campground-as-demand-generator distinction.
- Loan Analytics / MMCG and Innowave Studio (2024–2025): all-in development cost of $15,000–$50,000 per site, per-site utility line items of $5,000–$15,000, and the 50–70 percent operating-expense band, plus the ramp-to-stabilization and stabilized-DSCR sizing conventions for seasonal operators.
- National Park Service Acadia visitation data via The Ellsworth American (January 2026): 4,079,318 recreational visits in 2025, a 3 percent increase over 2024, concentrated in a July–August peak; the Midcoast and Downeast tourism zone as a distinct Maine economy.
- Maine Office of Tourism, 2024 visitor and lodging data (2025): 12.36 million hotel room nights at approximately 54 percent occupancy on an average 4.5-night trip, masking peak concentration and winter closures.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 Population Estimates, via the Maine Office of the State Economist: Maine population 1,414,874 as of July 1, 2025, and median age 44.9, the oldest state in the nation.
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce, America Works Data Center (2025): Maine labor-availability ratio of 67 available workers per 100 open jobs; Maine State Chamber of Commerce, approximately 33,000 unfilled positions (2025).
- Maine Governor's Energy Office citing U.S. Energy Information Administration and Census data (2025): home heating-fuel shares, roughly 52 percent heating-oil dependence, and high electricity pricing; Maine Department of Labor minimum-wage adjustment to $15.10 effective January 1, 2026; Maine Revenue Services and Tax Foundation lodging tax of 9 percent.
- USDA Rural Development, Maine State Office, Bangor (2026): roughly 99 percent of Maine's land area is USDA-eligible rural territory, with only Portland, Bangor, and Lewiston outside; Northern Border Regional Commission Catalyst Program (up to $50 million across a 13-county Maine service area), Finance Authority of Maine (FAME), and Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI) as distinctive rural and mission channels.
- Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae manufactured-housing-community loan program terms (via Multifamily.loans and CommercialRealEstate.loans, 2025): the RV-resort exclusion ("No RV resorts or broken condominiums allowed"), which routes pure transient RV resorts toward SBA, USDA, conventional bank, CMBS, or debt-fund capital.
- SDRetirementPlans (2026, citing RVIA and industry data): outperformance of parks within a 30-to-60-minute drive of a major attraction on both occupancy and rate, and remote-work and drive-market demand drivers.