Feasibility Study Company Independent Feasibility Analysis

Arkansas · Market Intelligence

Arkansas Feasibility Studies

An independent, lender-grade feasibility practice for Arkansas across SBA 7(a) and 504, USDA Rural Development, EB-5, and conventional capital. This page is our standing, sourced read on where Arkansas markets are oversupplied, how deals actually get funded by region, and where Arkansas feasibility studies fail review.

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5.8%
Northwest Arkansas apartment vacancy, 2H 2025 — up from 3.3%2
#9
Northwest Arkansas, 9th-fastest-growing U.S. metro1
54/75
Arkansas counties classified rural and USDA-eligible20
$3B
Big River 2 mill, largest private project in state history8
The Arkansas Thesis

A statewide Arkansas number is indefensible.

Arkansas rewards feasibility work and punishes shortcuts, because it holds one of the widest intra-state divergences in the nation. The corporate boomtown of Northwest Arkansas — the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers metro — grew 2.4 percent to 622,177 in 2025 and ranked the ninth-fastest-growing U.S. metro, gaining roughly forty new residents a day and anchored by three Fortune 500 headquarters in Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt.1 At the opposite pole sits the agricultural Delta, where Pine Bluff has been called America's fastest-shrinking city, now near 37,657 with a 24 percent poverty rate.23 A single statewide growth or rent assumption blends those two realities and survives contact with neither.

The same asset class behaves oppositely across regions. Multifamily is the clearest proof: Northwest Arkansas absorbed a large apartment wave while holding vacancy at just 5.8 percent in the second half of 2025, with average rent still rising to $1,127.20 per month, whereas the Delta is depopulating with no defensible new-supply thesis.2 Little Rock is the moderate counterweight; Mississippi County runs a workforce-housing shortage against a national steel build-out; and south Arkansas is an emerging Smackover lithium story. We underwrite Arkansas region-by-region, against the current pipeline, the regional funding channel, and the Arkansas-specific factors most studies miss.

What follows is organized as a working desk: a live oversupply monitor, a funding-routing map, the review failures that sink Arkansas studies, the regulatory edges that decide outcomes — the limited Certificate-of-Need line, the Smackover lithium framework, and the gaming regime — and a per-region demand fingerprint. Every figure is dated and attributed in the sources below.

The Oversupply & Pipeline Monitor

Where Arkansas markets stand, region by region.

A supply-pressure read for each region and asset class, refreshed each quarter from named primary sources. A dash means we hold no current tracked reading, not that the market is balanced. Data current to Q2 2026.

Supply pressure: Oversupplied Balanced Undersupplied Digesting / softening
Region Multifamily Self-Storage Industrial Office Hotel Pipeline
Northwest Arkansas Digesting5.8% vac., 2H25 OversuppliedTop sf/capita in US Balanced$9.60 NNN, re-tightening Balanced6.3% vac., Walmart-driven Balancedcorporate-travel demand
Little Rock / Central Balanced+0.6% growth No read~$139/mo street Balanced Softeningolder, govt-heavy stock Balanced30 Crossing underway
Fort Smith / River Valley Balanced No read BalancedF-35 upside Balanced BalancedF-35 tailwind
Jonesboro (NE) Balanced No read Balancedrice & ag No read Balanced
Mississippi County Undersuppliedworkforce shortage No read GrowingBig River 2 online No read Undersuppliedworkforce demand
Hot Springs Digestingretirement, declined 2025 No read No read No read Balancedtourism / gaming
Delta (Pine Bluff) Oversuppliedby decline; depopulating No read Weak Weak Saracen expansion
South AR (Smackover) No readspeculative on lithium No read Speculativeuntil FID No read Balanced

Readings compiled from sources 1–15 below. Vendor vacancy estimates for the same market can differ; each figure is attributed at its point of use.

Multifamily: one state, opposite trajectories

Northwest Arkansas is digesting the largest delivery cycle in its history. Vacancy rose to 5.8 percent in the second half of 2025 from 3.3 percent a year earlier as fifteen complexes and 1,494 units delivered, yet average rent still rose to $1,127.20 per month and 2025 building permits topped $1.06 billion.2 The pipeline is thinning: units under construction fell for five straight quarters to about 3,150 from 4,617 a year earlier, a market moving back toward balance with rent growth cooling but still above the national line.3 Little Rock is the moderate counterweight, growing 0.6 percent on government, eds-and-meds through UAMS, and financial services.1 The Delta around Pine Bluff is the opposite pole, depopulating with no defensible new-supply thesis, while Mississippi County runs a documented workforce-housing shortage against the steel build-out. Underwriting peak-2021 to 2023 Northwest Arkansas rent growth is the signature error; use in-place rents with concession haircuts.

Self-storage: Northwest Arkansas tops the national per-capita map

The Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers metro holds the most self-storage square footage per capita of any U.S. metro, against a national benchmark near 7.0 to 7.8 square feet per capita — a direct signal that new Northwest Arkansas storage must clear an unusually high existing-supply bar despite strong population growth.5 Street rates split by market: Little Rock averaged about $139 per month and North Little Rock $111, while Fayetteville and Rogers ten-by-ten units ran materially lower; national street rates were roughly flat in 2026 as the under-construction pipeline shrank to about 2.3 percent of stock.5 Exact metro per-capita figures sit behind a Yardi Matrix subscription and are reconciled before a study ships.

Industrial: the signature asset class, across four clusters

Industrial is Arkansas's defining asset class. In Northwest Arkansas, the Walmart distribution network and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, headquartered in Lowell, anchor a logistics hub where asking rents hit a record $9.60 per square foot triple-net in 2025, up 2.9 percent, even as construction starts fell roughly 60 percent and warehouse vacancy settled near 6.1 percent — balanced and re-tightening.24 Springdale anchors one of the nation's largest poultry-processing industries through Tyson Foods, and the Delta anchors rice and grain milling through Riceland Foods in the nation's top rice-producing state. The signature national story is Mississippi County steel: U.S. Steel completed the roughly $3 billion Big River 2 mill in late 2025 — the largest private project in Arkansas history — lifting campus capacity toward six million tons, and announced a roughly $1.9 billion direct-reduced-iron plant in Osceola, part of Nippon Steel's commitment of at least $3 billion to the state.8

Office and the Walmart concentration

Northwest Arkansas runs one of the most unusual office markets in the country. Walmart opened its 350-acre, roughly 2.4-million-square-foot mass-timber Home Office in Bentonville in January 2025, consolidating about 15,000 associates, and nearly 1,300 suppliers maintain local offices to serve the three Fortune 500 companies based in the metro — Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt.7 Northwest Arkansas commercial vacancy fell to 6.3 percent in the second half of 2025 with positive net absorption, though commercial permits dropped to their lowest since 2017.2 This vendor-office ecosystem is the metro's defining demand driver and its defining concentration risk: any shift in Walmart's vendor-office or return-to-office policy moves the market directly. Little Rock office is softer, weighed by older, government-heavy stock.

Hotels, gaming, and senior housing

National hotels posted their first full-year occupancy and revenue-per-available-room declines since 2020 in 2025, with U.S. RevPAR near $102.78.14 Arkansas demand is corporate and tourism-driven: Northwest Arkansas runs on Walmart-vendor supplier visits, Razorback athletics, Crystal Bridges, and Bentonville's mountain-biking trail system, while Hot Springs runs on Oaklawn racing and casino tourism. Three casinos under Amendment 100 generated a record $743 million in gross gaming revenue in 2025, and Saracen in Pine Bluff opened a 318-room hotel in early 2026; the fourth Pope County license was revoked by Issue 2 in November 2024, so no near-term new gaming supply is coming.15 In senior housing, national occupancy reached 89.5 percent in Q1 2026, its nineteenth consecutive quarterly gain, and Arkansas is unusually supply-protected because both skilled nursing and assisted living are Permit-of-Approval-gated.13 Metro-level RevPAR and NIC MAP occupancy are vendor-paywalled and confirmed before they drive a pro forma.

The Funding-Routing Map

How an Arkansas deal actually gets funded.

Feasibility work exists to satisfy a specific reviewer. Knowing which channel funds your asset in your region is half the battle. This is the routing most feasibility pages never publish.

SBA district coverage in Arkansas
One district office administers SBA programs across the state.17
District officeRegion covered
Arkansas District Office (Little Rock)All 75 counties statewide

On the 504 side, Arkansas is served by statewide Certified Development Companies led by Six Bridges Capital Corporation, the 504 affiliate of the Arkansas Capital Corporation group in Little Rock, which the SBA asked to manage the state's 504 program in 1989 and which reports having provided more than $1.7 billion in capital to Arkansas businesses over its history; Capital CDC lends statewide as well, and competing claims to be the largest are self-reported and unresolved without the SBA data file.18 On the 7(a) side, the signature Arkansas-based lenders are Arvest Bank in Bentonville, Bank OZK in Little Rock, and Simmons Bank, with Southern Bancorp active as a CDFI and national specialists such as Live Oak Bank — the number-one SBA 7(a) lender by dollar volume nationally in fiscal 2025 — funding special-purpose credits; current Arkansas loan-level rankings should be pulled from the SBA data file rather than assumed.19 For rural credits, USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loans route through the Arkansas Rural Development state office in Little Rock; 54 of 75 counties are rural, and 41 percent of Arkansans live in rural areas against 14 percent nationally, making Arkansas a core USDA state.20 The decisive new tool is the July 4, 2026 decoupling of the 7(a) and 504 caps to $10 million combined, the highest in agency history.21

  • A Northwest Arkansas metro multifamily, office, or industrial dealConventional or CMBS plus SBA via Arvest or Bank OZK; 504 real estate through Six Bridges / Arkansas Capital.
  • A Little Rock or central-Arkansas projectBank OZK, Simmons, or Centennial, paired with a 504 through Six Bridges Capital Corporation.
  • A Delta, rural, or agricultural deal outside the big metrosUSDA Rural Development (B&I, Community Facilities, REAP) first, then Southern Bancorp as a CDFI, then SBA.
  • Mississippi County steel-cluster workforce housingConventional plus USDA where eligible plus local county housing-incentive programs.
  • South Arkansas Smackover workforce housing or industrialUSDA Rural Development plus conventional; do not route on lithium revenue before a Final Investment Decision.
  • A larger owner-occupied steel, food-processing, or manufacturing dealStack the new $10M combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap effective July 4, 2026; sequence the 7(a) first.
Common Review Failures

How Arkansas feasibility studies fail review.

Each failure below is tied to a real Arkansas number. These are the recurring reasons an Arkansas study loses credibility with a lender or agency, engineered out of our deliverables before they ship.

  1. Statewide-average error

    Blending one Arkansas growth or rent assumption merges the ninth-fastest-growing U.S. metro, Northwest Arkansas at plus 2.4 percent, with a metro losing population in Hot Springs and America's fastest-shrinking city in Pine Bluff at roughly minus 1.46 percent a year. One 2025 measure showed the state posting a net loss of 1,224 people as deaths outnumbered births. No statewide number survives contact with a specific submarket.124

  2. Northwest Arkansas / Walmart concentration

    Northwest Arkansas office, multifamily, hotel, and retail demand is deeply tied to Walmart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, and the roughly 1,300-vendor office ecosystem. Underwriting the metro without stress-testing a shift in Walmart's vendor-office or return-to-office policy, or corporate layoffs historically cited as a hotel-demand risk, is a signature error.7

  3. Delta poverty and rural depopulation

    Pine Bluff carries a 24 percent poverty rate and a median household income of $42,718, has declined about 8.1 percent since 2020 to roughly 37,657, and holds the fastest-shrinking-city title. Underwriting Delta or rural housing, retail, or senior housing on metro-style absorption is a failure mode, because those demand fingerprints are shrinking, not growing.23

  4. Northwest Arkansas supply-wave digestion

    Northwest Arkansas multifamily vacancy more than doubled from 3.3 percent in 2H 2024 to 5.8 percent in 2H 2025 as roughly 1,494 units delivered. Underwriting peak-cycle rent growth is a failure when the market is digesting supply and offering concessions; use current in-place rents with concession adjustments and the shrinking, roughly 3,150-unit construction pipeline.23

  5. Certificate-of-Need miscategorization

    Competitors who call Arkansas a full-CON state are wrong, because hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers are not gated; competitors who call it a no-CON state miss the long-term-care Permit of Approval regime. Both errors are disqualifying in a senior-housing study, where nursing and assisted-living beds are supply-controlled.16

  6. Lithium speculation and price risk

    The Smackover projects are promising but pre-construction: Standard Lithium and Equinor's Final Investment Decision is only expected in 2026, first production is targeted for 2029, and lithium prices fell sharply in 2023 to 2025. Underwriting south-Arkansas workforce housing or retail on lithium demand before a Final Investment Decision and construction start is speculative; stage assumptions to construction milestones.10

  7. Tornado and flood mispricing

    Arkansas is tornado-prone, including the March 2023 Little Rock tornado, and faces Arkansas, Mississippi, and White River and Delta flooding. These drive property-insurance cost and availability, which must be priced into debt-service-coverage and operating-expense assumptions rather than treated as a rounding error.22

Regulatory Edges

The Arkansas rules that decide feasibility outcomes.

Four regulatory realities separate an Arkansas study that survives review from one that does not. The first is the one competitors most often state wrong — in both directions.

Certificate of Need: limited for hospitals, retained for long-term care

Arkansas is a limited or partial Certificate-of-Need state, and this is the point competitors most often get wrong. It does not gate hospitals or ambulatory surgery centers, so for those categories supply is market-driven and oversupply and competition risk run higher, analytically like Texas. It does gate long-term care through a Permit of Approval administered by the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency under a nine-member Health Services Permit Commission, under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-8-101 et seq.16 The Permit of Approval covers nursing facilities, residential care facilities, assisted living facilities, home health and hospice agencies, psychiatric residential treatment facilities, and intermediate care facilities for the intellectually disabled, using a county-level, population-based bed-need methodology with four review cycles a year. Critically, and unlike most states, Arkansas assisted living is also Permit-of-Approval-gated, so both skilled nursing and assisted living are supply-controlled and carry low oversupply risk — a differentiator that strengthens senior-housing feasibility across the continuum.16

The Smackover lithium framework

South Arkansas sits atop the Smackover formation, and a genuine lithium buildout is advancing but pre-commercial. ExxonMobil, through its Saltwerx subsidiary, announced its first batch of battery-grade lithium near Magnolia on April 8, 2026, ahead of its original 2027 timeline.9 Standard Lithium and Equinor's South West Arkansas Project completed its Definitive Feasibility Study in October 2025, secured a DOE finding of no significant impact in May 2026, and expects a Final Investment Decision in 2026 with first production targeted for 2029.10 The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission approved the first-ever Arkansas lithium brine royalty at 2.5 percent for the Reynolds Unit on May 29, 2025, alongside unitization — the regulatory scaffolding a south-Arkansas pro forma must reflect.11 Underwriting real estate on lithium revenue before a Final Investment Decision and construction is speculative.

Gaming under Amendment 100

Arkansas casino gaming operates under Amendment 100, passed in 2018. Three casinos — Oaklawn in Hot Springs, Southland Casino Hotel in West Memphis, and Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff — generated a record $743 million in gross gaming revenue in 2025, up 3.1 percent, and Saracen completed a $250 million expansion with a 318-room hotel in early 2026. The fourth license, for Pope County, was revoked by Issue 2 in November 2024, and the Cherokee Nation lost its federal challenge in 2025, so the market is a mature three-casino field with no near-term new gaming supply.15 Hospitality and retail feasibility around these anchors must model a fixed, not expanding, gaming base.

Tailwinds in the sponsor's favor

Several recent changes cut the other way. Arkansas is aggressively cutting income tax: the top individual rate fell to 3.9 percent effective January 1, 2025 and to 3.7 percent effective January 1, 2026, with the top corporate rate dropping to 4.1 percent effective January 1, 2027, and the governor has signaled a long-term goal of phasing out the individual income tax; property taxes are low at roughly a 0.56 percent effective rate.22 And the SBA doubled its combined 7(a)-plus-504 ceiling to $10 million effective July 4, 2026, materially enlarging bankable deal size.21

Region Divergence

Eight Arkansas markets, eight demand fingerprints.

Each region carries its own economic base and its own supply position. These are the units of analysis for an Arkansas study, and each anchors a dedicated market page.

Corporate boomtown

Northwest Arkansas

Walmart, Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt, and the University of Arkansas anchor the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers metro, up 2.4 percent to 622,177, the ninth-fastest-growing in the nation and the Milken Institute's top-ranked small-metro performer for 2025.16 Multifamily is digesting a supply wave, storage leads the country per capita, and office runs on the vendor ecosystem.2

Government & finance

Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway

The state's largest metro at 777,607, up 0.6 percent, on government, eds-and-meds through UAMS, and finance through Stephens. Multifamily reads balanced with suburban growth in Conway and Saline County; office is softer on older, government-heavy stock.1

Manufacturing & military

Fort Smith / River Valley

Manufacturing and military drive the 234,140-resident metro. The Ebbing Air National Guard Base foreign F-16 and F-35 pilot-training mission, with an academic center breaking ground in May 2026, is a durable tailwind for housing, hotels, and services.12

Agriculture & university

Jonesboro

An agricultural and regional center of 139,440 anchored by Arkansas State University and the rice economy, home to the world's largest rice mill. Demand is steady; the market reads balanced across asset classes.1

Land of Steel

Mississippi County

The top steel-producing county in the country. U.S. Steel's Big River 2 mill completed in late 2025 and a roughly $1.9 billion DRI plant was announced in Osceola, so industrial is growing while workforce housing is undersupplied.8

Tourism & retirement

Hot Springs

Tourism, Oaklawn racing and gaming, and retirement in Hot Springs Village anchor Garland County, the only Arkansas metro to lose population in 2025 on its older age structure. Hospitality reads balanced; retirement housing is digesting.15

Delta & depopulation

Pine Bluff / Delta

Delta agriculture and the Saracen casino anchor Jefferson County, but Pine Bluff is America's fastest-shrinking city near 37,657 with a 24 percent poverty rate. Underwrite on shrinking, not growing, demand and route rural deals through USDA.23

Smackover lithium

South Arkansas

Timber, energy, and the emerging Smackover lithium story across Union, Columbia, and Lafayette counties around El Dorado and Magnolia. Transformative upside, but speculative for real estate until the lithium projects reach a Final Investment Decision.10

By Asset Class

Arkansas feasibility studies by asset class.

Each asset class carries its own Arkansas demand drivers, from the Walmart supply chain to Delta rurality to the Smackover lithium south. Explore the analytical approach by property type.

Arkansas Questions

Arkansas feasibility study questions.

Does Arkansas require a feasibility study for an SBA loan?

Under SBA SOP 50 10 8, a feasibility study is discretionary rather than universally mandated, and lenders commonly require one for special-purpose properties and startup or ground-up projects that lack operating history. Arkansas credits often involve special-purpose, rural, or ground-up collateral routed through USDA and SBA, so feasibility analysis is frequently expected.

Does Arkansas have a Certificate of Need law?

Arkansas is a limited or partial Certificate-of-Need state. It does not gate hospitals or ambulatory surgery centers, so those categories face market-driven supply and elevated oversupply risk. It does gate long-term care through a Permit of Approval administered by the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-8-101 et seq., covering nursing facilities, assisted living, residential care, home health, hospice, and ICF/IID. Unlike many states, Arkansas assisted living is also POA-gated. Claims that Arkansas has full CON, or no CON, are both wrong.

Which Arkansas real estate markets are oversupplied right now?

As of Q2 2026 the picture diverges sharply by region. Northwest Arkansas multifamily is digesting a large delivery wave at 5.8 percent vacancy in 2H 2025, up from 3.3 percent a year earlier, while its self-storage is oversupplied on a per-capita basis. The Delta around Pine Bluff is oversupplied by decline, depopulating with no defensible new-supply thesis. Little Rock is moderate, and Mississippi County workforce housing is undersupplied against the steel build-out.

Who funds SBA and USDA loans in Arkansas?

The SBA Arkansas District Office in Little Rock serves all 75 counties. 504 credits route through statewide CDCs led by Six Bridges Capital Corporation, the affiliate of Arkansas Capital Corporation, with Capital CDC also active. Active 7(a) lenders include Arvest Bank, Bank OZK, Simmons Bank, and Southern Bancorp, alongside national specialists such as Live Oak Bank. USDA Business and Industry loans route through the Arkansas Rural Development state office in Little Rock, and 54 of 75 counties are rural and USDA-eligible.

What is a targeted employment area in Arkansas for EB-5?

A targeted employment area qualifies an EB-5 project for the $800,000 minimum investment. In Arkansas, rural areas outside any metropolitan statistical area and outside any city of 20,000 or more qualify as rural TEAs with a 20 percent visa set-aside, and much of the Delta, south Arkansas, and the Ozarks qualifies. High-unemployment census tracts in the metros can qualify as high-unemployment TEAs. TEA status is verified at the filing date using current unemployment data.

How is an Arkansas feasibility study different from a national one?

Arkansas contains one of the widest intra-state divergences in the country, from the ninth-fastest-growing U.S. metro in Northwest Arkansas to America's fastest-shrinking city in Pine Bluff. The same asset class behaves oppositely across regions, so a statewide average misprices nearly every deal. A defensible Arkansas study is built region-by-region against the current pipeline, the funding channel, and Arkansas-specific factors: the Walmart corporate concentration, the Smackover lithium and Mississippi County steel build-outs, and the limited-CON Permit of Approval regime for long-term care.

Underwriting an Arkansas project? Start with the market read.

A methodology briefing walks through the analytical framework, the deliverable composition, and the current Arkansas market data for your region and asset class — including the Walmart concentration, Smackover lithium, and limited-CON factors that decide Arkansas outcomes.

Request a methodology briefing
Sources

Data sources and dates.

Every figure on this page traces to a named authority. Real-estate readings are point-in-time and vendor-dependent; where vendors disagree, the range is shown and each is attributed at its point of use.

  1. Talk Business & Politics and the Arkansas Economic Development Institute, citing U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 and 2025 metro population and growth rankings (March 2025 and April 2026).
  2. Arvest Skyline Report, University of Arkansas Center for Business & Economic Research (released March 17, 2026), Northwest Arkansas multifamily, warehouse, and commercial data.
  3. MMG Real Estate Advisors, Northwest Arkansas multifamily market reports (Q3 2025).
  4. Sage Partners, Northwest Arkansas 2025 Year-in-Review, via Talk Business & Politics (February 2026), Northwest Arkansas industrial.
  5. Yardi Matrix self-storage per-capita rankings, via SpareFoot (January 2026); StorageCafe, RentCafe, and FindStorageFast street-rate and benchmark data (2025–2026).
  6. Milken Institute, Best-Performing Cities (2025), via the Northwest Arkansas Council (March 27, 2026).
  7. Walmart and the Arkansas Advocate, Bentonville Home Office opening (January 2025); Northwest Arkansas Council supplier-ecosystem data.
  8. Arkansas Business and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, U.S. Steel Big River 2 completion and Osceola direct-reduced-iron plant (November 2025); Global Energy Monitor and Ohio River Valley Institute (2025).
  9. ExxonMobil (Saltwerx) via FinancialContent, first battery-grade lithium at Magnolia (announced April 8, 2026).
  10. Standard Lithium and Equinor, South West Arkansas Project Definitive Feasibility Study and Final Investment Decision updates, via GlobeNewswire (October 2025–May 2026); U.S. Department of Energy NEPA Finding of No Significant Impact (May 14, 2026).
  11. Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission, first Arkansas lithium brine royalty at 2.5 percent, Reynolds Unit (May 29, 2025), and unitization.
  12. Talk Business & Politics and ABC17, Ebbing Air National Guard Base foreign F-16 and F-35 pilot-training mission (2025–2026).
  13. NIC MAP Vision, senior housing occupancy (Q4 2025 and Q1 2026 releases; April 23, 2026).
  14. CoStar, U.S. hotel performance full-year 2025 (January 2026); STR, AHLA, and CBRE national RevPAR (2025).
  15. Casino.org and the Arkansas Racing Commission, casino gross gaming revenue (2025–2026); Amendment 100 (2018); Issue 2 (November 2024).
  16. Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency and Arkansas Department of Health, Permit of Approval program under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-8-101 et seq. (2026).
  17. U.S. Small Business Administration, Arkansas District Office directory, Little Rock (current 2026).
  18. Six Bridges Capital Corporation and Arkansas Capital Corporation, via the Encyclopedia of Arkansas; Capital CDC public disclosures; SBA 504 CDC data via data.sba.gov.
  19. SBA fiscal 2025 lender data (Live Oak Bank press release, October 2025); Arvest Bank, Bank OZK, Simmons Bank, and Southern Bancorp SBA activity (fiscal 2020 figures illustrative; current rankings via data.sba.gov).
  20. USDA Rural Development, Arkansas state office, Little Rock (2026); HRSA rural-population data (2022).
  21. SBA Policy Notice 5000-879058 (dated May 18, 2026; effective July 4, 2026), combined 7(a)-plus-504 cap of $10 million; NAGGL summary (2026).
  22. Tax Foundation and the Arkansas Policy Foundation / Arkansas Advocate, Arkansas income, property, and sales tax data (2026); Public Acts 1 and 2 of the May 2026 special session.
  23. World Population Review, Pine Bluff population and poverty (2026); HRSA persistent-poverty data.
  24. Deltaplex News and Talk Business & Politics, Arkansas natural population change (2025).