Missouri Feasibility Studies

The newest Census vintage also shows the pace easing. Extension's analysis has Missouri growing 0.4% over the twelve months to July 2025, a gain of more than 27,000 people, after 0.6% in the twelve months before ³. The previous vintage had put the July 2024 population at 6,245,466 ²; that figure and the Vintage 2025 total come from different releases and are not subtracted here, and a study that compares two years should take both from one vintage. An analysis from 2024 reused at the older rate overstates household growth; a study should state its county estimate's vintage and keep county and trade-area growth apart.

Payrolls moved more than population. MERIC's August 2026 report shows 2,100 jobs added in the month and 34,100 over the year, with unemployment down from 4.0% in August 2025 ⁵. The path there was uneven: the over-the-year change was +1,500 in February 2026, fell to -8,400 in March, and recovered to +18,700 in June and +29,400 in July ⁵. A study should cite the latest month and show the twelve-month path.

None of these rows is broken down by county. Mining, logging and construction grew in the June release, and so did leisure and hospitality ⁶; a hotel or restaurant study can cite the second as background, but its case rests on hiring inside its own trade area. Private education and health services also added jobs ⁶, the row that sits behind medical office, senior housing and childcare demand.

On the other side of the ledger, the July release shows manufacturing and other services shrinking, and federal jobs fell in both releases while local government added them ⁶⁷. A project whose customers work at a plant or a federal installation should name the employer, show its recent headcount from a dated source, and test coverage if that payroll shrinks again.

Statewide survey counts are most easily misread in senior housing. The 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey counts 1,107,743 Missourians aged 65 or older ⁸, but one building draws from a drive-time ring cut by age band and income, so the statewide pool says nothing about the depth of its own market. The same survey gives Missouri 2,508,227 households, with the median household earning $70,702 and the median renter paying $1,033 in gross rent ⁸; a rent roll set above its county's own median should name the renters who will pay it. BEA puts Missouri's 2024 per capita personal income at $64,920 ⁹; it comes from another agency and another method, and belongs in a study as its own series rather than beside the survey's household income.

Start with the county. In FY2027 a 7(a) loan of $700,000 or less to a business located in a rural area pays no upfront guaranty fee, a waiver category the notice names ⁷⁸, and the SOP defines a rural area as a county that the U.S. Census Bureau has defined as at least 30 percent rural ²¹. A diner in the Ozarks or a fuel stop in the Bootheel may qualify on its address alone, so the study should quote the county's published rural share and set the fee line in sources and uses from it.

Then the building. Many projects on this page are start-ups in one-use buildings: fuel stations, travel centers and wash tunnels. The SOP's examples of special purpose property include both car washes and gas stations ²¹. Where the operating company is two years old or younger, the building is one of those special purpose types and the loan is a 504, the borrower puts in 20% of the project's cost, by SOP 50 10 8.1 ²¹. A strong market finding does not lower that contribution; it decides whether the lender believes the projection the contribution sits behind.

Coverage floors, loan limits and the other contribution levels are set out in the 7(a) and 504 practice. On the study itself, 13 CFR 120.160(b) provides that SBA may require one ²⁰, a discretion rather than a rule, and the note on the feasibility study myth reads the clause word by word.

Wages and leave

The state minimum wage rose to $13.75 on January 1, 2025 and, by reports from July and August 2025, was scheduled to rise to $15.00 on January 1, 2026 ³²³³. HB 567, signed July 10, 2025 and effective August 28, 2025, ended the inflation indexing that would have followed from 2027 and repealed the paid sick leave requirement that voters had put in force on May 1, 2025 ³³. A budget prepared before mid-2025 may carry an indexed wage and sick leave accruals that no longer apply, so labor cost should be rebuilt from the law now in force.

Childcare

Missouri licenses childcare in three capacity tiers: a family home is capped at 10 children, a group home at 20, and anything larger is a center ²⁵. Group homes and centers staff at 1:4 from birth to age 2, 1:8 for 2-year-olds, 1:10 from 3 to 5 years and 1:16 at 5 and over ²⁶. Those ratios turn an enrollment plan into a payroll, so the study's age mix is a cost assumption as much as a demand one.

Not every competitor holds a license. Under Nathan's Law a license-exempt provider may care for up to 6 children, no more than 3 of them under age 2, by KSDK's report on the law's side effects ²⁷, and such homes never appear on a list of licensed centers. The 2023 County Business Patterns count 1,463 Missouri childcare establishments with paid employees ¹¹, a tally most home providers fall outside. The childcare asset page sets out the room-by-room method.

Senior care and health facilities

Certificate of Need, administered by the Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee, reaches facilities licensed under chapter 198, long-term care beds in hospitals and long-term care hospitals ²². For chapter 198 beds and hospital long-term care beds, a capital expenditure of $600,000 triggers review, and for major medical equipment the trigger is $400,000 ²². A project crossing those lines should treat the certificate as a loan condition. SB 337, introduced in 2025, would amend the program ⁹¹.

DHSS licenses assisted living and residential care facilities under 19 CSR 30-86, and a facility with an Alzheimer's special care unit must file the disclosures set by section 198.500 RSMo and the sections after it ²⁴. The one staffing figure in the research predates that rule's June 30, 2026 update: AHCA/NCAL's 2019 state summary gives residential care a licensed nurse for at least 8 hours a week per 30 residents ²³. Nor did the research find a bed threshold separating the two licenses, which a memory care study has to settle with the department.

Fuel storage

Missouri's tank cleanup cover, the Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund, has a fixed end: 2022 legislation moved its sunset from 2025 to December 31, 2030, unless extended again ²⁹, and the fiscal note on it estimated annual collections at about $16.6 million against annual expenses of about $18.8 million ²⁸. A fuel station or truck stop financed past 2030 should name the cover that would replace the fund and carry its cost in operating expenses.

Lodging and short-term rentals

Lodging pays the 4.225% state sales and use tax, with local hotel and tourism taxes on top, according to a secondary guide to rental taxes that identified no separate state lodging tax ³⁰. The research found no state statute that either enables or preempts local short-term rental rules ³¹⁹², so a hotel or cabin study reads its own city's ordinance and puts nightly rentals in the competitive set wherever that ordinance allows them.

On May 20, 2026 the Governor announced that Google would build a $15 billion air-cooled data center campus at New Florence, in Montgomery County, where site work had already begun ⁴⁶. The Edison Electric Institute's September 2026 list of large load projects also carries a $3 billion Amazon Web Services data center at a location it gives as Warren ⁴⁷; Montgomery County approved tax abatements in December 2025 for an AWS project after crowded town halls, and reports place it inconsistently ⁴⁸.

The first question for a study near New Florence is which campus it is counting: Google's is announced and under way, while the AWS site is not settled, so a model should not add the two together. No source in the research gives either campus's construction workforce, how long it stays, or its operating headcount. A motel, RV park or truck stop nearby should reach its coverage floor on demand that does not depend on the build years, and show any crew demand as a separate line that ends.

Missouri's large-load tariffs bear on how long the operating demand lasts. SB 4 (2025) directed the Public Service Commission to price very large loads, and in November 2025 it approved Evergy and Ameren Missouri tariffs for new loads of 75 MW and above ³⁸³⁹. Ameren's carries a minimum contract of 12 years, an optional five-year ramp, required collateral and a minimum monthly bill with the demand charge set at 80% ³⁸. To a nearby motel those terms are a horizon: a campus that has signed such a contract has committed to a minimum term with collateral behind it, so the study should ask whether and when the campus signed before it carries operating staff into later loan years.

That inventory is HHS's residential care compendium of 2007, which counted 502 residential care facilities with 15,661 units and 114 assisted living facilities with 5,505 units in Missouri ⁴⁵. Nearly two decades of openings and closures make it useless as a supply figure. A senior housing study counts its competitors from the department's current licensure list and from site visits.

Past the compendium, the research found no statewide Missouri count of apartments, storage space, hotel rooms, industrial availability, senior occupancy, RV sites, licensed childcare slots, hospitals or surgery centers. None of the seven market sections has a hotel occupancy, storage, senior occupancy or RV park figure either, and no MoDOT traffic count was retrieved anywhere. Competitive supply in a Missouri report is therefore a table the study compiles, listing each named competitor with its size, its distance from the site, a dated rate or occupancy reading and where the entry came from, whether a licensure list, a registration roll, a site visit or a phone survey. The traffic past the site is a count the study orders.

On the Missouri bank, St. Louis County and the independent City of St. Louis form the core, with St. Charles, Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln and Warren counties around them; the Illinois counties belong with Illinois. Broker reports for St. Louis draw the market as each firm chooses, sometimes with Illinois submarkets, so a Missouri-side study should ask for its own county's submarket data rather than quote a metro headline.

The city and its counties

The independent city fell to 278,144 residents by July 2025, down from 301,349 in the Census Bureau's April 2020 estimates base, a loss of 7.7% ⁵⁵. That decline is the first thing a reviewer will look for in a city-sited study. A project inside the city cannot lean on its resident base, so its demand has to come from jobs, visitors, students or patients, or from a neighborhood that is gaining while the city as a whole loses.

The May 2025 tornado is part of the city's recent record. FEMA put $147 million into St. Louis City and County across the 2025 declarations, and more than $90 million in Public Assistance went to projects stemming from the tornado alone, by May 2026 ⁴⁰. A study in the damaged parts of the city or county should map the damage area and the recovery status of competitors in it.

Boeing and the north county corridor

Boeing employed more than 16,000 people across north St. Louis County, St. Charles County and the city in March 2025, when it won the Air Force's F-47 fighter contract ⁵¹. In June 2025 Construction Dive reported that Boeing had hired Jacobs for a $1.8 billion campus expansion at Lambert covering 1.1M SF ⁵²; Boeing does not officially tie the facility to the F-47. The aircraft assembly building occupies a 106-acre site near I-170, Airport Road and James S. McDonnell Boulevard, according to an undated KSDK report ⁵³, and by July 2026 its roof, exterior panels and hangar doors were in place, with steel started on the central utility plant ⁵⁴.

A campus of that size feeds hotels, restaurants, fuel stations, apartments and suppliers along the north county corridor, during construction and once production starts, with phases running from 2026 to 2030 ⁵². It is also one employer and one program, so a study that depends on it should cite a dated headcount and test coverage at lower employment.

Cortex and 39 North

The region has two innovation districts. Cortex, in the city's Midtown, covers 200 acres and reports $1.33 billion of cumulative investment ⁵⁷. CIC, a tenant, describes it on an undated page as home to more than 500 companies and more than 5,000 employees, generating $151.4M in tax revenues ⁵⁸. Washington University's Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Research Building there cost $616M and holds 609,000 SF, according to a secondary encyclopedia entry ⁵⁹.

39 North, the plant science district around Creve Coeur in St. Louis County, covers 600 acres and counts more than 35 agtech companies ⁶⁰. Its partners reported more than $120M of investment since the 2017 master plan as of April 2023 ⁶¹. Neither district has a federal geography, and the research found no population, permit or employment-change series for either. A study near them should build demand from tenant rosters and dated project announcements, not district totals.

Lenders and lodging taxes

GoSBA's ranking of 2025 7(a) lending in the city, drawn from SBA data, puts Midwest Regional Bank first by dollars: seven loans totalling $11.3M. Next by dollars came 29 loans worth $6.1M from U.S. Bank and three worth $5.9M from Harvest Small Business Finance ⁵⁶. A hotel study in the city should carry the City of St. Louis hotel taxes, which total 7.25% and include a 3.75% convention and tourism levy, on top of the state sales tax ³⁰.

Columbia's largest employers are almost all public or institutional. Columbia REDI's 2025 list, using first-quarter 2024 full-time benefited counts for Boone County, puts the University of Missouri at 9,998, MU Health Care at 8,103, Columbia Public Schools at 3,014, Veterans United Home Loans at 2,847 and the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital at 2,074 ⁶⁷. Four of the five depend on state or federal budgets or on enrollment. A study here should treat the university's enrollment and the state's appropriation as demand drivers, track both, and test what a hiring freeze would do to the projection.

The city of Columbia counted 130,851 residents in July 2025 ⁶³, and the metro grew 0.41% in the year before that ⁶⁴. Payrolls went the other way, falling 0.51% from December 2024 to December 2025 ⁶⁴, the latest twelve-month change the research found. Permits fell in one month: Missouri Business Alert's report of Census data counts 101 residential permits for Columbia in May 2026, down 17.9% from May 2025 ⁶⁸; the research leaves open whether that is the city or the metro, and permits or units. A Columbia study should date each of these readings to the month and say which one its demand line follows.

For a hotel, revenue should be modeled by month and coverage proven across twelve months.

Food processing, animal health and health care carry St. Joseph, with the Air National Guard's 139th Airlift Wing as a military anchor; the local development office's employer list names Mosaic Life Care, Triumph Foods, the school district, the airlift wing, Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health and Missouri Western State University ⁷³, but its headcounts carry no date, so this page leaves them out. The comparison chart that gives Joplin its count puts St. Joseph at 71,001 in July 2025, with the same caveat to check it against census.gov ⁷⁰.

Two projects show where the economy is adding capacity. Triumph Foods announced an expansion in December 2023 expected to create 88 new jobs with Missouri Works support ⁷¹, and Mosaic opened its Plaza 4 outpatient facility, about 90,000 SF, in 2026, according to a Wikipedia entry ⁷². A meat plant expansion supports workforce housing, fuel, food service and trucking demand; an outpatient building supports medical office and nearby lodging for patients and families.

A trade area drawn across the Missouri River into Kansas should say where its customers live and which state's rules apply to the competitors.

Labor under the 2025 wage law. Full-service dining, quick-service, and childcare, where the state's ratios fix the staff count.

Licensed long-term care. Assisted living and memory care, under Certificate of Need and 19 CSR 30-86.

The tank fund's end date. Fuel and convenience and travel center loans, wherever the fund's end date falls inside the loan term.

Data center build-outs. Hotel, RV park and apartment studies near New Florence and in the Northland.

Arriving households. Storage, car wash and grocery projects where permits show new housing, as in the lake counties.

Lake housing. Marinas and boat and RV storage in Taney and Camden counties.

Hospital payrolls. Medical office around CoxHealth and Mercy in Springfield, MU Health Care in Columbia and Mosaic in St. Joseph ⁶⁷⁷²⁹³.