Car Wash Feasibility Study in the Pittsburgh, PA Metro Area

Car washes in Allegheny County's metro

Pittsburgh, PA shows 27 SBA car wash loans for FY2017 to FY2026, worth $41.5 million, and the dollars per loan are large. The $446,000 median is only 0.48x the typical national car wash loan, yet the central half climbs from $78,850 to $3.5 million, a wide band. The metro is 26 of 458 when areas are ordered by these loans, car washes are 14th of 39 locally, and the location quotient reads 1.02x. The 1.02x location quotient puts the metro almost exactly at the national share of car wash lending, while the median sits well under the national class median.

Holders and counties

The Huntington National Bank is shown with 7 loans worth $2.3 million and First Commonwealth Bank holds 5 loans worth $18.1 million, as SBA reports current holders. The 5 loans at First Commonwealth Bank carry far more dollars than the 7 at The Huntington National Bank, so the two holdings differ in loan size. Neither entry says anything about how either bank lends. Allegheny County has 13 loans and Washington County 5. No program split or franchise share is printed for the cell.

Two years carry the story

FY2021 prints 5 loans and $12.8 million, and FY2022 prints 7 loans and $13.4 million. The other years, FY2017 to FY2020 and FY2023 to FY2026, are blank for want of loans, not zero. Allegheny and Washington counties together fall short of the 30 loans that Loan Analytics wants for FY2017 to FY2021, so there is no cancellation or charge-off rate to read.

What a car wash study must test

Because the central half is so wide, the first job is to say which kind of project this is: a conversion or equipment upgrade near the low end or a new tunnel near $3.5 million. The study has to test cars per day against the site's traffic, the mix of memberships and single washes, water and chemical costs, and the debt service that a tunnel's price implies. Appraisers will want the real estate and the equipment valued separately. Debt service should be tested twice, once at the loan the borrower hopes for and once at a smaller one, to show how much slack the project has. On coding, mobile washes and truck washes share the car wash code, so truck operations cannot be split out. A loan counts in this metro by its project county.