Case Study · Oklahoma · Truck Stop & Travel Center · SBA 504

Truck Stop Feasibility Study, Oklahoma — An SBA 504 Worked Case

This is how our independent feasibility study company and consultant team analyzed a new-build interstate travel center underwritten to an SBA 504 credit, from diesel throughput and Class 8 truck demand through the debt-service coverage a lender must document. It is a representative, anonymized worked example of the methodology — not a specific client deal — set off an interstate interchange in Oklahoma, one of the country's premier freight-corridor states.

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$9.60M
Total project cost, new-build interstate travel center
80%
SBA 504 financing ($7.68M of $9.60M)
1.40x
Stabilized DSCR, above the ~1.15x SBA floor
≈17%
Illustrative levered equity IRR, 10-year hold
The Engagement

A ground-up travel center on an Oklahoma interstate interchange.

A sponsor came to our feasibility study company with a ground-up interstate travel center and an SBA 504 lender that needed the projected cash flow independently tested before it would commit. The subject is a roughly 15-acre parcel at an interstate interchange on a major Oklahoma freight corridor, positioned to fill a long gap between full-service professional-driver facilities. The build program is a 5,000-square-foot travel-center store, diesel islands with eight truck fueling positions plus a passenger-car gasoline forecourt, a co-branded quick-service restaurant (QSR), driver showers, and roughly 90 truck-parking spaces.

Because a travel center 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 diesel gallons, inside sales, and foodservice margin to service this specific loan.”6 Truck stops are also treated as 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, diesel volume, competition, and debt-service analysis that supports that credit.

Representative and anonymized. Every figure below is illustrative of a typical engagement of this type; the site, interchange, and parties are composited, not a real named borrower, address, or completed transaction.

Demand

Diesel demand follows freight, not car counts.

The demand read starts with trucks and freight, not a capture rate applied to a passenger traffic count. Diesel volume at a travel center is a function of Class 8 truck traffic and corridor freight tonnage, and it ramps over years as the site builds professional-driver loyalty and fleet-card agreements.

Diesel is the dominant revenue line by dollars and the thinnest by margin, and it is cyclical. U.S. transportation-sector diesel consumption ran about 123 million gallons a day in 2025, roughly 75 percent of total distillate, and it tracks freight, which trucks move to the tune of about 67 percent of U.S. tonnage.29 A defensible study underwrites the freight trough, not the peak: the ATA truck-tonnage index fell 3.2 percent year over year in December 2024, so 2021–22 volumes are cyclical highs, not a baseline.3 NATSO's historical survey put average single-site diesel volume near 812,513 gallons a month, and high-volume interstate sites run above that; a new site ramps toward, not from, that level.6 On the corridor's Class 8 truck flow, the absence of a competing full-service facility for tens of miles, and a graded multi-year ramp, the model supports a stabilized diesel throughput near 4.5 million gallons a year — about 375,000 gallons a month, below the NATSO site average and deliberately conservative for a new entrant building fleet relationships.

The profit, though, sits inside the building. For the broader convenience channel, NACS reported foodservice at 28.5 percent of in-store sales but 38.9 percent of in-store gross profit, while fuel was 65.0 percent of sales dollars but only 38.8 percent of gross profit.1 A travel center compounds that with a full-service store, a branded QSR, driver showers, and truck parking. On the corridor traffic, the store format, and the amenity draw, the model supports stabilized inside-store sales near $1.5 million, a foodservice/QSR line around $0.68 million, and a modest, conservatively sized parking-and-shower line.

Supported demand build (stabilized, Year 3 basis)
Corridor freight and truck demand translated into the throughput and sales the pro forma carries.
Demand driverBasisSupported figure
Corridor demand baseInterstate Class 8 truck traffic & freight tonnage9Primary diesel driver
Stabilized diesel throughputGraded multi-year ramp; below NATSO ~812,513 gal/mo site average6≈ 4.5M gallons/yr
Gasoline throughputLocal passenger-car and light-truck capture≈ 0.9M gallons/yr
Inside-store salesTravel-center merchandise; professional-driver & motorist mix≈ $1.5M/yr
Foodservice / QSR co-brandBranded daypart capture; ~39% of in-store gross profit1≈ $0.68M/yr sales
Parking, showers & driver services~90 spaces; documented parking shortage, conservatively monetized5Incremental high-margin line

Diesel and inside-sales logic grounded in EIA diesel-consumption, ATA freight-cycle, NACS in-store, and NATSO volume data; see sources 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. Figures are illustrative of the engagement type.

Supply & Competition

A long corridor gap, with a national chain as the real threat.

Truck-stop competition is measured up and down the interstate, not within a three-mile ring. The subject fills a multi-interchange gap in full-service professional-driver capacity, but the dominant competitive risk is a national chain at the next major interchange — and any announced chain project nearby.

Competitive set along the corridor (anonymized)
The subject's independently surveyed competitive set, including diesel positions, truck parking, and corridor distance.
CompetitorTypeDiesel / parkingDistanceRead
Competitor ANational chain12 positions / ~140 spaces16 mi (next interchange)Fleet cards & loyalty; principal diesel threat
Competitor BIndependent truck stop6 positions / ~55 spaces11 mi (opposite side)Dated site, no branded QSR
Competitor CRegional chain8 positions / ~80 spaces34 miDifferent freight node, off-peak
Competitor DFuel-only / fleet card4 positions / minimal7 miPrice-led, thin inside sales
Competitor EBranded C-store (cars only)Gasoline only / no truck parking2 miNot a Class 8 competitor

Competitive set surveyed for the engagement; anonymized. Announced and permitted chain supply was scanned, not just the standing set, because a new national-chain site within a few interchanges can devastate an independent's diesel volume.

Only one full-service professional-driver facility sits within a comfortable single-tank radius — the national chain 16 miles east at the next major interchange — and it, not the nearby car-only C-store, is the competitor the model weighs. The subject fills a gap of more than 40 corridor miles with no full-service truck facility, addressing the documented truck-parking shortage of roughly one space for every eleven trucks nationally.5 A rigorous study does not stop at the standing set: it scans announced and permitted chain projects, because the majors bring loyalty programs, fleet-card acceptance, and national fuel purchasing an independent cannot match, and a single new chain site a few interchanges away is the one event that most threatens the forecast.3 Here the read is a genuinely underserved interchange — freight flow is steady and the corridor gap is real — tempered by that standing chain-entry risk, which the coverage analysis is stressed against.

Market Conditions

Oklahoma: a freight-corridor state with an energy-cycle undertow.

The state backdrop is a tailwind for an interstate diesel-and-foodservice site, tempered by the energy cycle and the nation's second-highest property-insurance costs. Oklahoma sits at the crossroads of the I-35, I-40, and I-44 freight corridors, with the Tulsa Port of Catoosa anchoring inland logistics.

Oklahoma is one of the country's premier truck-freight geographies. I-35 is the premier international-trade truck corridor, running from Laredo north through the state to the Midwest and Canada; I-40 is a transcontinental long-haul route; and I-44 ties the two metros.9 The state also carries relatively generous existing truck-parking supply — it ranks among the states with the most spaces relative to highway mileage — which is exactly why the study monetizes the parking line conservatively rather than treating reservable stalls as a rich revenue center.5 Population reached about 4.09 million as of July 2024, and, decisively for retail supply, Oklahoma is essentially a non-Certificate-of-Need state, so fuel-and-convenience supply is set by the market rather than a permit gate.714

The offsetting realities are three. First, the energy cycle is the state's master variable: Oklahoma's oil-and-gas sector supports more than 135,000 jobs and the Baker Hughes rig count held at 41 to 42 through late 2025, and while national freight drives the corridor's diesel, a local energy downturn softens regional trucking and fuel demand.8 Second, severe weather is a real cost line: Oklahoma is the second-costliest U.S. state for property insurance, and a canopy-and-store travel center with large exposed structures carries a heavier tornado-and-hail insurance load than the national average, which the pro forma builds into operating expense.13 Third, much of the eastern half of the state remains reservation Indian Country for jurisdictional purposes after McGirt, so an interchange in eastern Oklahoma warrants a jurisdictional and regulatory check.14 None of these sink an interstate diesel site; each is a factor the study prices rather than ignores.

Demographics & Site

Why the interchange captures the corridor.

For a travel center the “demographics” that matter are truck traffic and interchange geometry, not rooftops. Class 8 truck flow, ramp geometry for loaded 18-wheelers, and truck-route designation convert corridor demand into diesel gallons.

The decisive screen is physical, and it is a threshold, not a sensitivity: highway visibility, on- and off-ramp geometry adequate for loaded 18-wheelers, truck-routing designation, and exit viability. A site that cars can reach but loaded trucks cannot maneuver into fails regardless of headline traffic counts, so the study confirms the interchange geometry before it credits a single gallon. The subject clears that screen — it sits on a truck-designated interchange with pull-through diesel islands and turning radii sized for tractor-trailers.

Geometry and the corridor gap then do the work. With no full-service professional-driver facility for more than 40 corridor miles in the peak-flow direction, the subject is the natural rest-and-refuel stop for drivers timing hours-of-service breaks, and its roughly 90 parking spaces, showers, and branded QSR lengthen dwell time and lift the inside ticket. A secondary, local layer of gasoline and convenience demand from the surrounding community and the modest rooftop growth around the interchange rounds out the passenger-side forecourt, but it is the truck corridor, not local population, that the model treats as the primary driver.

Financing

The SBA 504 structure.

Total project cost lands at $9.60 million. The 504 program is purpose-built for owner-occupied fixed assets and construction, which is why a ground-up, special-purpose travel center routes here, through a bank first mortgage, a CDC/SBA debenture, and borrower equity.

Project cost breakdown
Uses of funds for the ground-up interstate travel center.
Cost componentAmount
Land (~15-acre interchange parcel)$1.20M
Site work, truck aprons & utilities$1.60M
Building shell (5,000 sf travel center)$1.85M
Diesel islands, canopy, MPDs & USTs$1.70M
Truck parking, showers, striping & lighting$1.15M
C-store FF&E$0.55M
QSR build-out$0.45M
Soft costs & contingency$0.65M
Working capital & fees$0.45M
Total project cost$9.60M
Capital structure & terms
How the $9.60M is financed, and the debt-service load it creates.
ItemFigure
Bank first mortgage (50%)$4.80M
CDC / SBA 504 debenture (30%)$2.88M
Borrower equity injection (20%)$1.92M
Illustrative bank rate / amortization~9.5% / 25-yr
Illustrative debenture rate / amortization~6.5% / 25-yr
Blended annual debt service≈ $737k

Structure per SBA 504 conventions under SOP 50 10 8; owner-occupancy 60% for new construction; the 50/30/20 split reflects a project that is both special-purpose and a start-up. See sources 10 and 11.

The equity injection sits at 20 percent, not the standard 10, and the debenture at 30 rather than 40 percent, and that is deliberate. A conventional 504 splits 50 percent bank, 40 percent CDC/SBA debenture, and 10 percent borrower equity; SBA raises the borrower's share to 15 percent where a project is a special-purpose property or a start-up, and to 20 percent where it is both.11 A ground-up travel center is both — special-purpose collateral and a business with no operating history — so the 50/30/20 split is the expected one, and it is exactly why the feasibility study is expected rather than discretionary here.10 On a 25-year amortization at an illustrative 9.5 percent on the bank note and 6.5 percent on the debenture, blended annual debt service is about $737,000 — the number the projected coverage has to clear. In Oklahoma the 504 channel is deep: a single SBA district office in Oklahoma City serves all 77 counties, REI Oklahoma in Durant is the broadest-footprint statewide 504 CDC, and BancFirst is the state's largest 7(a) lender, while the mid-2026 increase in the combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap to $10 million enlarges bankable deal size.12 Gaming revenue, which can render an SBA borrower ineligible above one-third of gross, is absent here, so eligibility is clean.10

Financial Model & Outcome

Feasible and bankable, on coverage the credit can document.

The stabilized model builds gross profit from five engines — diesel, gasoline, merchandise, foodservice, and parking — nets operating expense, and carries the coverage to the SBA floor and beyond on a graded diesel ramp.

Stabilized gross profit & NOI build (Year 3)
Gross profit is built from through-cycle diesel margin and non-fuel profit, not a capitalized freight peak.
LineBasisAmount
Diesel gross profit4.5M gal × ~$0.19/gal gross margin4≈ $855k
Gasoline gross profit0.9M gal × ~$0.28/gal gross margin4≈ $250k
Inside-store gross profit$1.5M sales × ~32% merchandise margin1≈ $480k
Foodservice / QSR gross profit~$0.68M sales × ~50% margin1≈ $340k
Parking, showers & driver services~90 spaces, high-margin amenity line5≈ $165k
Total gross profitDiesel + gasoline + inside + foodservice + parking≈ $2.09M
Operating expensesLabor, card fees, utilities, R&M, insurance, property tax, G&A≈ ($1.06M)
Net operating income (NOI)Gross profit less operating expense≈ $1.03M

Diesel line uses a fleet-discounted through-cycle gross margin near $0.19/gal; non-fuel gross profit carries the majority of site profit, the resilience metric NACS data implies. Insurance expense is loaded for Oklahoma severe-weather exposure. See sources 1, 4, 5, and 13.

Debt-service coverage ramp
Coverage by year against the SBA floor of ~1.15x, on the graded diesel ramp.
YearStageNOIDebt-service basisDSCR
Year 1Ramp (building driver & fleet-card volume)~$740kFull amortizing ~$737k1.00
Year 2Building~$900kFull amortizing ~$737k1.22
Year 3Stabilized~$1.03MFull amortizing ~$737k1.40

DSCR computed as NOI divided by the period debt-service obligation. See source 11 for the ~1.15x coverage convention.

The stabilized 1.40x coverage is the figure the lender documents, and it clears the SBA's roughly 1.15x floor with real headroom.11 The ramp is deliberately graded: Year 1 lands right at 1.00x because a new travel center builds diesel volume over years, not months, as it secures professional-driver loyalty and the fleet-card and fleet-fueling agreements that concentrate gallons; underwriting mature diesel volume from month one is one of the most common ways these pro formas fail review.3 By Year 2 the project covers fully amortizing debt service at 1.22x, and by Year 3 it stabilizes at 1.40x. Because non-fuel and foodservice gross profit — not the thin diesel spread — carries the majority of site profit, the coverage is more resilient to a freight-cycle dip than a fuel-led plan would be.1

On the equity side, the $1.92 million injection earns growing levered free cash flow — near breakeven in the Year 1 ramp, building to roughly $250,000 a year once stabilized and net of a fuel-and-equipment capital reserve for tanks, dispensers, and canopy. The exit is valued on a going-concern basis, not a leased-fee cap rate: a travel center is an owner-operated business, and capitalizing a Year-10 stabilized NOI near $1.18 million at a going-concern overall rate around 11 percent — within the 8-to-12 percent range the market applies to owner-operated fuel businesses — implies a gross sale near $10.75 million, and roughly $4.2 million of net equity after selling costs and the outstanding SBA 504 balances.15 Underwriting diesel volume to a mid-cycle base rather than a freight peak, the blended result is an illustrative levered equity IRR of about 17 percent over a 10-year hold.3

Verdict: financially feasible and bankable. On independently derived diesel demand, a stabilized 1.40x DSCR, and a ~17% levered equity IRR, the projections support the SBA 504 credit.

How the Study Was Built

Independent diesel demand, competition, and a stressed DSCR.

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 diesel throughput from corridor Class 8 truck traffic and freight flow, not from a passenger traffic count, then graded it on a multi-year ramp that reflects the time a new site takes to build fleet-card volume and driver loyalty. Inside sales and foodservice were modeled at through-cycle margins, with non-fuel gross profit carrying the majority of site profit rather than the thin diesel spread.

The coverage analysis was then stress-tested. We ran the debt-service coverage against diesel volume and margin downside — a freight-recession trough on the volume side and fleet discounting on the margin side — and against the entry of a national chain a few interchanges away, the single event that most threatens an independent's gallons. One scope boundary is worth stating plainly: as the feasibility consultant, we reference, but do not perform, the Phase I environmental site assessment; the large-diameter diesel underground-storage-tank system carries a materially larger environmental footprint than a retail gas station, and that is a separate environmental professional's engagement running in parallel to the study.10 That combination — independent diesel demand, a real competitive scan, and a stressed DSCR — is what lets the lender rely on the file.

Representative engagement

This is an anonymized, illustrative worked example of our methodology, built on market data current to 2026; figures are representative of a typical engagement of this type and do not depict a specific client, site, or completed transaction.

Underwriting an Oklahoma truck stop for an SBA loan? Start with the feasibility study.

Feasibility Study Company prepares independent truck stop and travel center feasibility studies for SBA 504 and 7(a) credits, built to the coverage standard your lender must document. A methodology briefing walks through the diesel demand, competition, and DSCR analysis behind a case like this one, calibrated to your corridor, interchange, and format.

Request a methodology briefing
Sources

Data 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 Oklahoma, Truck Stop & Travel Center, and SBA 7(a) & 504 analyses and the primary authorities they cite.

  1. NACS (National Association of Convenience Stores), State of the Industry (April 2026 for 2025): foodservice 28.5% of in-store sales but 38.9% of in-store gross profit; fuel 65.0% of total sales dollars but 38.8% of gross profit; well-run merchandise operations ~30–35% gross margin and foodservice above 50%. Convenience-channel figures, not travel-center-specific.
  2. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 2025 estimate via the Dallas Fed: U.S. transportation-sector diesel (distillate) consumption about 2.94 million barrels per day, roughly 123 million gallons per day, in 2025, about 75% of total U.S. distillate.
  3. American Trucking Associations (ATA), American Trucking Trends 2025 and For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index: index −3.2% year-over-year in December 2024; 3.58 million professional drivers; 91.5% of carriers operate 10 or fewer trucks; fleet-card and fleet-fueling programs concentrate diesel volume; first year-over-year gains since 2022 in early 2026. ATRI, Operational Costs of Trucking 2025: truckload operating margins −2.3% in 2024 (freight-recession stress).
  4. NACS, “Who Makes Money Selling Gas” (2025), citing OPIS Retail Fuel Watch, and Raymond James / OPIS five-year averages (gasoline 39.2 cents, diesel 53.3 cents gross retail margin); travel-center diesel margins run thinner after fleet discounts, the basis for the ~$0.19/gal figure used here.
  5. FHWA, Jason's Law Truck Parking Survey (2019 data, released December 2020): about 313,000 marked spaces nationally against 3.58 million drivers, roughly one space for every eleven trucks; Oklahoma among the states with the most spaces relative to highway mileage (Transport Topics/FHWA, 2020). OOIDA (February 2026) and ATRI “Critical Issues” (2023): truck parking ranked the #2 industry-wide issue.
  6. NATSO (trade association for travel plazas and truck stops): working definition of a truck stop (at least one shower, 15 parking spaces, and diesel for sale); historical survey average single-site diesel volume 812,513 gallons (August 2008; dated, order-of-magnitude only).
  7. U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates: Oklahoma population 4.09 million as of July 1, 2024 (+0.77% year over year, released May 2025).
  8. Oklahoma Energy Today, Baker Hughes Oklahoma rig count (September and November 2025): 41 to 42 active rigs; Oklahoma oil-and-gas sector supports more than 135,000 jobs; SCOOP/STACK plays in the Anadarko Basin and the Cushing crude hub anchor the state energy cycle.
  9. FHWA Freight Analysis Framework (cited 2022) and Texas A&M Transportation Institute disaggregation of FAF3: trucks carry about 67% of U.S. freight by weight and 73% by value; I-35 identified as the premier international-trade truck corridor (Laredo north through Oklahoma to the Midwest and Canada); I-40 and I-44 and the Tulsa Port of Catoosa anchor Oklahoma logistics.
  10. 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); truck stops eligible as special-purpose going concerns; businesses deriving more than one-third of gross revenue from legal gambling ineligible under 13 CFR 120.110(g); Phase I ESA and elevated environmental scope for large diesel UST systems referenced but performed by a separate environmental professional.
  11. SBA 504 program structure (Certified Development Company / Growth Corp guidance and SOP 50 10 8): standard 50% bank / 40% CDC debenture / 10% borrower equity; borrower equity rises to 15% for a special-purpose property or a start-up, and to 20% where the project is both; SBA/504 DSCR convention of roughly 1.15x or higher; going-concern appraisal allocating value across land, building, equipment, and intangibles by a Certified General appraiser.
  12. U.S. Small Business Administration, Oklahoma District Office directory, Oklahoma City (all 77 counties; accessed July 2026); REI Oklahoma (Durant) statewide 504 CDC and Metro Area Development Corporation (Oklahoma City metro) disclosures; BancFirst Corporation Form 8-K (fiscal 2025) as the state's largest 7(a) lender; SBA combined 7(a)-plus-504 loan-cap increase to $10 million effective mid-2026; only about 3.6% of Oklahoma land is USDA-ineligible.
  13. Insurify, “Insuring the American Homeowner” (2026), with NerdWallet and Cotality analyses (2026): Oklahoma the second-costliest U.S. state for home insurance; severe-weather (tornado and hail) exposure loads property-insurance operating expense above the national average.
  14. McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020) and Stroble v. Oklahoma Tax Commission (Oklahoma Supreme Court, July 2025): much of eastern Oklahoma, including most of Tulsa, remains reservation Indian Country for jurisdictional purposes, a live underwriting factor; National Conference of State Legislatures, Certificate of Need State Laws (2025): Oklahoma is essentially a non-CON state, so commercial supply is market-set.
  15. Matthews Cap Rate Recap and Retail Petroleum Consultants / gasvaluation.com: owner-operated fuel and travel-center going-concern overall rates of 8–12%; appraisal literature (Appraisal Institute; David C. Hyde, “Valuing Real Property Going Concerns”) on allocating value among real estate, FF&E, and business goodwill, and the “kiss of death” of a high soft-collateral share on a high-LTV going-concern loan.