Car Wash Feasibility Study in Ohio

Ohio car wash loans: smaller at the median, wide at the edges

Ohio is one of the larger car wash lending states, ranking 5 of 53, with 176 SBA approvals from FY2017 to FY2026 worth $138.4 million. The feature that separates it, both from the Ohio all-asset book and from washes nationally, is the median: $350,000, only 0.38x the national car wash median. The spread around that median is very wide. The lower quartile was $51,575 and the upper quartile $1.2 million, so the Ohio book holds two kinds of deal side by side: small equipment, refinance and mobile operations at one end, and full wash sites with land and buildings at the other.

That split shows in the lender list. The Huntington National Bank holds 52 loans worth $14.1 million, a large count of small loans, while Celtic Bank Corporation holds 18 worth $36.5 million, a few large projects. KeyBank National Association holds 9 and First Commonwealth Bank 7. SBA 504, with 41 of the approvals against 135 under 7(a), is spread among Growth Capital Corp. with 9 worth $10.1 million, Alloy Development Co., Inc. with 8, and Community Capital Development Corporation and Ohio Statewide Development Corporation with 6 each.

Ohio's place in the class, and its floors

The class sits 13 of 39 among Ohio asset classes, and its location quotient of 0.92x is near its national weight. Franchise washes are 4.5% of loans. Approvals peaked at 29 in FY2022, worth $28.5 million, and were 12 in FY2026.

Ohio wash approvals from the FY2017 to FY2024 years carry a 10.7% cancellation floor and a 13.4% ceiling that counts undisbursed loans. Credit losses so far are nil: Ohio's 71 wash loans disbursed between FY2017 and FY2021 have produced charge-offs of 0.00% so far, with a five-year reading that is 0.00% too. Those are floors for an Ohio cohort still repaying, and a newer, larger wash carries risks the older loans may not show.

What an Ohio car wash study must test

Because the Ohio median is so far below the class, a large wash project sits in the upper part of the local record and needs a study that justifies its scale. Demand work should measure traffic counts, competing washes and any membership model in the trade area; Franklin County holds 25 approvals, Cuyahoga 18, Summit 16, and Lake and Lucas 11 each. Cost should be bid, since tunnel equipment and site work drive the budget. Debt service coverage must hold at the loan requested, whether that is near $51,575 or near $1.2 million, and the appraisal must support a single-purpose site. One limit: SBA files car washes, truck washes and mobile wash services under a single code, so the Ohio figures cannot isolate one format.