Worked Example: SBA 504 Gas Station Feasibility Study in Illinois

This is a worked example, not a client engagement. It tests a ground-up fuel station and convenience store at an Interstate 80 interchange in Grundy County, Illinois, financed as an SBA 504 project with a bank first lien, a certified development company debenture and the borrower's cash. It is written for a first-time station owner, for the bank and development company that would underwrite the structure, and for anyone weighing what a feasibility consultant would have to put in front of them. Two sets of numbers run side by side: the sponsor's pro forma, which uses market figures, and the study's base case, which uses what the site's own evidence supports. Market, tax and program figures carry their source in the sentence that uses them; project figures without a source are labelled assumptions.

At a glance. An assumed 4,800 square foot store with 12 fueling positions on about 3.5 acres, open around the clock with foodservice, financed under the 504 structure with the debenture priced at a development company's posted 25-year rate. The sponsor's pro forma covers its debt with room to spare. The study's base case falls short of the program floor and the lender's minimum, and the case sets out a restructure that passes.

• Total project cost, all in: $5,837,465
• Sponsor's loan request (bank first lien plus SBA 504 debenture): $4,160,000
• Sponsor equity as a share of all-in cost: 28.7%
• Coverage on the sponsor's pro forma (market figures): 1.40x
• Coverage in the study's base case: 1.05x
• Binding minimum coverage: 1.25x
• Restructured loan that passes both tests: $3,470,000
• Sponsor equity share at the restructure: 40.4%

What a Feasibility Consultant Tests First: Does This Store Earn What a Listed Retailer's Stores Earn?

A credit officer reading this file would skip the structure and go to the one comparison the public record allows. Casey's General Stores, a listed Midwest retailer with about half its stores in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois ^[1], reports in its annual filing that its average store earned $566 thousand of store operating income in fiscal 2026, up from $496 thousand a year earlier ^[2]. Casey's defines that measure as after store expenses and depreciation and before interest, income taxes and company overhead ^[3]. Casey's puts its average store open a full year at 1,217 thousand gallons ^[4] and $2,199 thousand of inside sales ^[5]. A lender will ask why an independent store at an interstate exit would earn something different from what a chain's store earns at the same volume.

This version of the example answers by starting from the chain's store and not from a list of judgements. Table 1 rebuilds the average store from the filing: gross profit of $1,408,000, store expenses other than card fees of $648,451 and card fees of $95,417, which leaves store income before depreciation of $664,132. Reported store operating income of $566,000 sits $98,132 below that, the implied depreciation. The operating statement in Table 11 keeps the same volume, inside sales, inside margin and store expense level, then adds what a stand-alone owner carries that a chain carries elsewhere.

Two pro formas come out of that start. The sponsor's pro forma uses market figures and prints net operating income of $490,957, which is 0.87 times the chain's store operating income. The base case uses the best estimate from this site's evidence and prints net operating income of $368,498, which is 0.65 times the chain's store operating income and 0.55 times its store income before depreciation. Against debt service of $350,400, that is coverage of 1.40x for the sponsor and 1.05x for the base case. A near miss carries its own message to a lender: three inputs decide which side of the line the project falls on, namely the fuel margin, the overnight hours and the Illinois property tax. Nothing else separates the two columns.

Decision. The study would treat the comparison with Casey's store operating income as the opening test, reconcile the base case to it line by line, and size no loan before the three differing inputs are settled.

The Illinois Fuel Market and the I-80 Corridor

The Illinois Department of Revenue lists the motor fuel tax at 48.3 cents a gallon for gasoline and 55.8 cents for diesel from July 1, 2025 through December 31, 2026 ^[6]. Distributors pay the tax and collect it from their customers ^[7], so a retailer meets it inside its cost of goods. Federal weekly pump prices include all taxes ^[8], so the example can use them directly.

On November 9, 2026 the Energy Information Administration put Midwest (PADD 2) regular gasoline at $3.868 a gallon, down 23.4 cents in a week from $4.102 ^[9]. On-highway diesel was $6.201, down 20.1 cents ^[10]. Illinois falls in that region ^[11], and the model enters the two prices as 386.8 and 620.1 cents a gallon. The example takes the regional price and not the Chicago average of $4.461 ^[12], the cautious choice for an exit well outside the city.

Statewide volume is soft. The Federal Highway Administration reports 2024 highway use of motor fuel in Illinois of 5,417,807 thousand gallons, 1.7 percent less than the year before ^[13]. Census estimates put the state's population at 12,719,141 in July 2025, about 0.8 percent under its April 2020 base ^[14]. In 2024 Illinois recorded 104,290 million vehicle-miles, with 33,647 million on interstates, about 32 percent ^[15]. The Grundy County transportation master plan reports that the busiest road in the county is I-80, with over 50,000 vehicles a day ^[16]. That counts every vehicle and says nothing about how many stop at one exit.

Decision. The study would build fuel revenue on the regional survey price, set the margin from a multi-year average and not the latest year, and show the lender the effect of the market margin beside it.

Supply and Public Comparables

No source gathered for this example identifies a competing station at the interchange, so none is named, and the volume should be read as unproven for that reason. The public record offers benchmarks for what a store of this size sells and earns. They are comparables for volume and margin only; none is a party to the project or a competitor of the site, and the project is hypothetical.

NACS and NIQ TDLinx counted 122,620 convenience stores selling fuel at December 2025, which is 80.7 percent of the 151,975 convenience stores nationally ^[17]. NACS reports an average of 9.8 fueling positions at stores that sell fuel ^[18]. The project assumes 12 positions, defended by its interstate setting; Table 10 prints 278 gallons per position a day.

Casey's operated 2,944 stores in 19 states at April 30, 2026, and about 71 percent were in places of fewer than 20,000 people ^[1]. Those are small-town stores, so the chain's volume likely understates what an interchange can sell. Casey's new stores typically have 4 to 6 islands of dispensers and tanks holding 44,000 to 70,000 gallons ^[19], and almost all of its stores are open at least sixteen hours a day ^[20]. That second fact matters here, because this project is assumed to run twenty-four hours.

Murphy USA, a fuel-forward chain, sold 235.8 thousand gallons per store month in 2025 ^[21] and operated 43 stores in Illinois at the end of that year ^[22]. Murphy USA's retail fuel margin was 28.1 cents a gallon ^[23] and its merchandise margin 20.2 percent ^[24].

The volume check brackets the project. The base case sells 1.23 times the NACS average store on gallons, 1.00 times the Casey's average store and 0.43 times the Murphy USA store. On inside sales it is 0.98 times the NACS figure, 1.00 times Casey's and 0.90 times the fuel-forward chain. A consultant would add what this file could not: a count of stations at or near the exit, their pump counts and posted prices, and any competitor's plans.

Decision. The study would add a field survey of competing stations at the interchange before accepting any volume and would treat the benchmarks as bounds, not a forecast.

Demand: Traffic, Population and What Drivers Buy

Demand at this site is mostly passing traffic. The Grundy County Multimodal Transportation Master Plan of April 2024 reports I-80 volumes of over 50,000 vehicles a day ^[16]. Its resident survey also named minimizing the negative effects of truck traffic as the biggest transportation need ^[27]. That cuts against a truck-capable fuel site in a way no pro forma captures: a project that draws trucks to an exit can meet resistance from a planning board and neighbors.

Grundy County had 54,052 residents in July 2025, about 2.8 percent above its April 2020 base, while Kendall County to the north grew about 10.3 percent ^{[28] [29]}. The corridor looks more like a route between growing counties than a destination with its own rising population.

What drivers do when they stop matters more. In NACS's 2025 data a typical store logs 322 fills averaging 8.4 gallons, about 2,705 gallons daily ^[25]. In a February 2026 NACS survey 62 percent of fuel customers said they go inside ^[30], the share the inside business must convert. NACS also reported that pump transactions fell considerably in 2025 ^[31], so a new store has to win customers and not ride growth.

The inside business earns more per dollar than the pump. NACS reports in-store sales of $341.2 billion in 2025 ^[32]; fuel was 65.0 percent of sales dollars but 38.8 percent of gross profit ^[33]. NACS puts the foodservice share of in-store sales at 28.5 percent and its share of in-store margin dollars at 38.9 percent ^[34]. Casey's earned 58.6 percent after cost of goods on prepared food and dispensed beverages and 35.8 percent on grocery and general merchandise ^[35]. The model does not split inside sales by category. It takes the Casey's blended ratio, 40.75 percent as Table 1 prints it, because no source gives an independent's blended inside margin.

On volume, the base case assumes the Casey's average store, 3,334 gallons a day of gasoline and diesel together, of which an assumed 243,400 gallons a year is diesel, as Table 10 prints.

Why not credit the site with more than the chain's average? The interstate carries over 50,000 vehicles a day ^[16] while Casey's stores sit mostly in small towns ^[1], so a study could argue the site outsells the comparison. No sourced capture rate or interchange-store volume puts a number on that argument, and the case will not invent one. The base case therefore holds volume at an assumed 100 percent of the comparable. A new entrant's shortfall appears in the ramp instead, at an assumed 80 percent of stabilized volume in year one and an assumed 92 percent in year two, judgements because no source gives a ramp for a new interstate station. Table 4 prints the result.

Decision. The study would size demand from a traffic capture count at the specific exit, separating passenger from truck volume, and would not carry the comparable's average volume into a loan sizing without it.

The Site: Interchange, Tanks, Taxes and an Optional Gaming Area

The site is about 3.5 acres at an interstate interchange in Grundy County; no exit, town, parcel or address is named. Land is an assumed $875,000, about $250,000 an acre for an interchange parcel in a growing county at the edge of the Chicago area; no sourced land price was available, because the federal land value report sits behind a robots stop. The store is assumed at 4,800 square feet, inside the 4,000 to 5,000 square foot hyper convenience format that NACS describes ^[36], with two truck-capable positions among the 12, so it is not a full truck stop.

Tanks drive the compliance burden. Tanks and piping installed after April 11, 2016 must be secondarily contained and use interstitial monitoring under 40 CFR 280.20 ^[37]; the assumed fuel system of $1,150,000 covers four double-wall tanks with monitoring. The Illinois EPA says the state Underground Storage Tank Fund helps owners pay for leak cleanup and satisfies the federal financial assurance rules ^[38]. The fund's two revenue sources expire in 2030 ^[39]; the consultant would flag that and say no more than the Illinois EPA says.

Property tax is a large line and a weak input, and it is one of the three that separate the two columns. Illinois equalization targets assessments at 33 1/3 percent of market value ^[40]. Casey's own property taxes are already inside its store expenses, so the base case charges tax only on the facility's value above what Casey's carries per store: the real estate here against Casey's land and buildings at cost of $1,809,182 per store ^[41], at an assumed local rate of 7.00 percent. That produces the $54,917 in Table 11. The county's actual rate was not sourced, because the one page found returned a bot challenge, so a lender should verify it first.

The second differing line is labor. Casey's stores are open at least sixteen hours a day ^[20], so its store expenses already pay for sixteen hours. A twenty-four-hour interstate store needs eight more, and the base case assumes one associate overnight at the NACS store-level average wage of $15.04 ^[42] with an assumed 15 percent for payroll taxes and benefits, which Table 11 prints as $50,504.

The concept includes an optional video gaming area, but the base case books no gaming income, because the rules make it a licensing and local-permission question before a revenue question:

• A municipality may bar video gaming within its limits by ordinance, and a county board may bar it in unincorporated areas ^[43].
• Terminals must stay at least 100 feet from a school or place of worship ^[44].
• A Use Agreement with a licensed terminal operator must be signed before any terminal is placed ^[45].
• Financing terminals on a percentage of revenue is not permitted ^[46], and a lender that intends to enforce a security interest in a payout device must register ^[47].

The statewide record gives scale, not a forecast. The Illinois Gaming Board reports 49,450 active terminals at the close of 2025 ^[48] and net terminal income of $3,185,923,121 for the year ^[49]. Table 5 divides that to $64,427 per terminal across all location types, which is the case's own arithmetic and no evidence of what this site would earn. The operator split was not sourced, so the case states no gaming income, terminal count or split. What the table does print is the gap: $34,463 a year to reach the 1.15x floor and $69,503 to reach the binding minimum.

Decision. The study would keep gaming out of the base case, ask the municipality or county whether it prohibits gaming, and treat gaming only as an upside on a signed Use Agreement.

The SBA 504 Program Rules and How the Structure Is Built

The 504 program suits owner-occupied real estate and long-life equipment. A development company debenture funds the 504 loan, covering as much as 40 percent of project costs along with certain administrative costs, and it sits in second lien position ^[50]. A third-party loan supplies the balance of the permanent financing under a first lien ^[51]. On new construction, no less than 60 percent of the rentable area must be occupied by the borrower ^[52], and the passive-business bar in 13 CFR 120.110(c) aims at landlords who do not use the assets ^[53], which a borrower running its own station is not.

Rounded to the dollar; lines may not foot by $1.

The contribution and the single purpose reading. Under the regulation the borrower contributes 15 percent of project cost, administrative costs excluded, if the business is two years old or younger; the same 15 percent applies to a building of limited or single purpose, and 20 percent when both conditions hold ^[59], and this example assumes both apply. This borrower is a new business, so the first limb applies. A fueling facility, with its canopy, tanks and dispensers, has narrow use outside fuel retail, and the example reads it as single purpose, which makes the contribution an assumed 20 percent. A development company that did not read it that way would ask for less. This assumption is the more cautious and was fixed before any coverage was computed. A consultant would get the development company's classification in writing before relying on either.

The bank's share is at least half of total project cost when the borrower has operated two years or less or the asset is single purpose ^[60], and the example holds the bank first lien at that floor, amortized over an assumed 25 years. The 504 loan generally may not exceed 40 percent of project cost plus all eligible administrative costs ^[61], and the borrower and affiliates are limited to $5,000,000 ^[62]. The base debenture sits inside both, as Table 9 prints. A contingency reserve may not exceed 10 percent of construction cost ^[55], and the example assumes 5.0 percent. Interim financing may be repaid out of the project, points, fees and interest included, as an eligible project cost ^[57], which is why construction interest sits inside project cost. Because SBA bars 504 money for working capital or inventory ^[58], opening stock and pre-opening costs are paid in cash outside the project.

Fees follow the regulation. SBA charges a 0.5 percent guarantee fee on the debenture ^[63]. The CDC's processing fee can reach 1.5 percent of net debenture proceeds ^[64], and a funding fee of up to 0.25 percent may be charged ^[65]. The debenture can finance a closing fee of up to $10,000 ^[66]. The underwriters' fee has no regulatory rate and is assumed at 0.40 percent.

The rate is the second judgement. SBA states that the 504 interest rate is pegged to an increment above the current market rate for 10-year U.S. Treasury issues ^[85]. SomerCor 504, Inc., a development company in Illinois, posted a 25-year rate of 6.57 percent after the November 5, 2026 pricing ^[71]. With the 10-year Treasury at 4.86 percent on November 6 ^[69], that is 1.71 points above it. The case reads the posted rate as all in. SomerCor says its rural rates run about 25 basis points lower because the upfront guaranty and annual service fees are waived in fiscal 2027 ^[70]; Grundy County is not claimed to be rural. The sensitivity table prints a 2-point rate shock. The bank loan is priced off the 5-year Treasury at 4.64 percent ^[68] plus an assumed 2.50 points, the 7.14 percent in Table 12. The construction loan is assumed at 7.50 percent, the 7.00 percent prime rate ^[56] plus a half point.

The job rule is a real constraint. A September 30, 2025 Federal Register notice requires one job opportunity per $95,000 guaranteed by SBA ^[67]. Table 7 prints 16.7 required for the request's debenture against 17.3 store jobs at the site: Casey's 15.9 store team members per store plus 1.4 full-time equivalents for the overnight shift. NACS reports 19.9 store-level jobs for the average store ^[42]. The test is met narrowly, and it is a check for the development company to confirm, not a conclusion of this file.

Coverage is tested twice. On the site's own SBA program page, a 504 loan must reach 1.15x, measured either on historical results or on projections for two years ^[84]. The SBA operating procedure behind that statement was not available to this example, so the case rests on that page and on the regulation. The case adds a lender assumption of 1.25x, an assumption and not a rule, since 13 CFR 120 prints no coverage number. Of the two, the assumed 1.25x is higher, so that lender figure is the minimum that binds; the debt table prints both. The site's methodology page adds that the threshold comes from the program and the lender concerned ^[86]. SBA may also make a feasibility study, a survey or appraisals a condition of the loan ^[87].

Decision. The study would carry the single purpose reading and its assumed higher minimum until the development company's written classification says otherwise, and would treat the job count as a confirmation item.

SBA Lending Record for This Asset Class in Illinois

Loan Analytics keeps a loan-outcomes dataset built from the SBA's own loan-level 7(a) and 504 files ^[88]. For this example's state and asset class it covers SBA loans approved in fiscal 2017 to 2026 to businesses coded to gas station and truck stop, with the project in Illinois. The figures are the SBA program's record in the state, not Loan Analytics' work and not this hypothetical project. The dataset notes a limit on the class: the code is the borrower's industry. Truck stop or travel center cannot be split out. EV charging has no entry in the 2022 NAICS index.

Cost, Sources and Uses

Nearly every unit cost below is a judgement. No source here gives an installed fuel system cost or a site work estimate, and the study would replace each with a contractor's bid. The one sourced unit cost is the building: Rider Levett Bucknall's third-quarter 2026 ranges for Chicago run $170 to $280 a square foot for strip retail and $230 to $475 for a shopping center ^[54], as hard costs ^[89]. The example assumes $310 a square foot, because this building has a commercial kitchen, walk-in coolers and round-the-clock systems that strip retail lacks. The other lines are an assumed $875,000 for land, an assumed $650,000 for site work, a fuel system at an assumed $1,150,000, long-life equipment at an assumed $380,000, and architecture, engineering and permits at an assumed $230,000.

The building comes to $1,488,000, and the contingency, at an assumed 5.0 percent of site work, building and fuel system, to $164,400, half of what the regulation permits ^[55]. Interest during construction is $203,715, computed at the assumed 7.50 percent over an assumed 12 months with half the non-land construction cost drawn on average. The 504 project cost is $5,141,115.

The structure follows. The bank first lien is $2,570,558. The borrower contribution to the project is $1,032,465, 20.1 percent, a shade above the assumed minimum because the request is rounded down. The net debenture is $1,538,093, 29.9 percent of the project, under the 40 percent cap. Administrative costs of $51,350 are financed in the debenture: the $7,947 guarantee fee, $23,071 processing fee, $3,974 funding fee, $10,000 closing fee and an assumed $6,358 underwriters' fee. The gross debenture is $1,589,443. A further $645,000 is paid in cash outside the project: short-life equipment, third-party reports and closing costs, opening inventory and pre-opening costs. The all-in total is $5,837,465.

The sponsor's request is $4,160,000, the bank's $2,570,558 plus the gross debenture of $1,589,443, and it is the 504 maximum at this project cost rounded down; the debt table prints that maximum as $4,164,356. The sponsor equity is $1,677,465, 28.7 percent of the all-in cost, inside the sponsor's assumed cap of 35 percent.

For the loan record, Table 8 shows what SBA's data say about this class in Illinois. It covers all gas station and truck stop borrowers, with no way to separate truck stops. Its 504 column shows 23 loans over fiscal 2017 to 2026 against 304 for the two programs, so 504 is the smaller program for the class in the state. The 504 median loan is $592,000 and the middle half runs from $458,000 to $1,645,500. The request's debenture of $1,589,443 sits between the median and the top of that range, and the restructured debenture of $899,443 sits nearer the median. The record's loan size is the SBA-side amount, comparable to the debenture and not to total project debt.

Decision. The study would replace the unit-cost assumptions with bids before showing a final sources and uses table, and would hold the contribution at 20 percent until the classification is in hand.

The Pro Forma: The Sponsor's Figures Beside the Study's Base Case

Table 10 prints both columns of the stabilized build. In both, annual gallons are 1,217,000 and fuel sales at the November 2026 Midwest prices are $5,275,208. Inside sales are $2,199,000 at 40.75 percent, gross profit of $896,000, which matches Casey's own figure ^[5]. Other income is an assumed $45,000 from lottery and ATM commissions, propane exchange and vending. Total revenue is $7,519,208 in both. Fuel is the first difference. The sponsor's column uses the market fuel margin of 39.7 cents a gallon, the 2025 gasoline figure OPIS reported through NACS ^[79], and earns fuel gross profit of $483,149. The base case assumes 38.3 cents, the five-year average in the same source, and earns $466,111.

Why take the five-year figure and not the latest? Casey's says that it and the retail fuel industry earned a historically higher than average fuel margin in fiscal 2026, and that the metric can fluctuate significantly and unpredictably ^[83]. A 25-year loan is underwritten through that cycle, so the base case uses a figure from the middle of it. That is the best estimate for the site, not a discount for it.

Operating expenses carry the other two differences. Table 11 prints card fees of $194,741 in both columns, at the NACS ratio of 2.61 percent of sales, which is $21.3 billion of 2025 card fees ^[80] over $817.5 billion of industry sales ^[81]. Store operating expenses other than card fees are $648,451 in both columns, built from Casey's same-store employee, other and non same-store expense ^[74] over its average store count ^[77]. The columns then part. The sponsor's column adds back office of $60,000 and a replacement reserve of $30,000, both assumed, for operating expenses of $933,192. The base case adds the same two items plus overnight staffing of $50,504 and the Illinois property tax of $54,917, for operating expenses of $1,038,613.

The back office line exists because Casey's carries accounting, legal, information technology and field management in company overhead outside its store figures ^[75]; a one-store owner pays for a small version, a judgement the same in both columns.

The sponsor's pro forma and the study's base case do not disagree about the store. They agree on volume, inside sales, inside margin and store expense. They disagree on whether the store earns the market's fuel margin or its average through the cycle, whether twenty-four hours costs more than sixteen, and whether Illinois property tax on a new building exceeds what older stores pay. Each of the three has a stated reason, and none was chosen after coverage was seen.

The ramp table shows the early years. At the assumed year-one index of 80 percent the store sells 973,600 gallons, and net operating income is $126,024 against debt service of $350,400, coverage of 0.36x. Year two, at 92 percent, earns $271,508, coverage of 0.77x, and year three, the stabilized year, $368,498. Because the site's own SBA program page lets a 504 lender test projections for two years as well as history ^[84], the first two years are where a development company would test a start-up. The assumed $160,000 of pre-opening and working capital is not built to absorb two years in which income falls short of debt service, so a lender would size a separate operating reserve.

Decision. The study would present the sponsor's pro forma and the base case in one table, name the three inputs that separate them, and show the ramp apart from the stabilized year.

Coverage Under the Convention, Sensitivity and Break-Even

Table 12 prints the bank loan of $2,570,558 at 7.14 percent, with annual debt service of $220,781, and the gross debenture of $1,589,443 at 6.57 percent, with $129,620. Total debt service is $350,400, a loan constant of 8.42 percent. Net operating income of $490,957 gives the sponsor's pro forma coverage of 1.40x, and net operating income of $368,498 gives the base case 1.05x.

Two minimums apply. One is the 504 floor of 1.15x, which the site's own SBA program page reports ^[84]. The other is the lender assumption of 1.25x. The higher one binds, so the binding minimum is the assumed 1.25x. The sponsor's pro forma clears both. The base case clears neither: at 1.05x it sits under the floor and under the assumed lender minimum. The lender figure is this case's assumption, not a statement of what the program requires.

The supported loan shows what the earnings carry. The sponsor's pro forma supports $4,679,496 at the binding minimum, more than the 504 structure allows, which is why the request is held at the maximum. At the base case's earnings, with the bank held at half the project, the supported loan is $3,478,187. The debenture within it is $907,629, the debenture fees and administrative costs recomputed on it are $33,549, the project would cost $5,819,664 in all at that loan, and the equity at that loan is $2,341,477. Those four belong together, and they say that on the study's numbers the sponsor needs about the equity the restructure table prints, not the equity the request assumed.

Headroom is thin in every column. If revenue falls by a tenth, coverage falls to 0.71x, and by a fifth to 0.36x. With expenses up 10 percent it is 0.76x. A 5-cent drop in fuel margin leaves 0.88x. A 2-point rate shock lifts annual debt service to $416,312, and coverage slips to 0.89x. The only column above the base is the one that sets the fuel margin at the market figure, 39.7 cents, which gives 1.10x, still short of the floor. A store with this much fixed cost moves sharply with volume, and the downside is steeper than the upside.

The break-even table says what would have to be true. At base margins a volume index of 98.5 percent gives 1.00x, 102.8 percent the 1.15x floor and 105.7 percent the binding minimum. In gallons that is 3,284, 3,429 and 3,525 a day, against the base 3,334 and the NACS average store's 2,705 ^[25]. Inside sales would have to be $2,166,175, $2,261,509 and $2,325,064, against the $2,199 thousand Casey's reports ^[5]. At base volume the fuel margin would have to be 36.8, 41.1 and 44.0 cents, against the assumed 38.3 cents, the five-year average that NACS reports from OPIS data ^[79] and the 42.57 cents Casey's reported ^[4].

Decision. The study would report that the base case misses the program floor and the lender's minimum, size the loan at what the earnings support, and show the sponsor's pro forma as the case the field work would have to prove.

What Would Change the Answer

The fuel margin. This is the largest single lever and the one Casey's calls unpredictable ^[83]. The base case, at an assumed 38.3 cents, earns 1.05x; at the market's 39.7 cents the sensitivity table prints 1.10x; the break-even table puts the margin needed for the binding minimum at 44.0 cents. A margin history for Illinois interstate sites, not a national average, would tell a lender which of those numbers to trust, and NACS reports that most drivers rank price first ^[90].

Whether the interchange outsells a small-town chain average. The model credits none of the upside, for want of a sourced figure, and the volume index needed for the binding minimum is only 105.7 percent. A capture count at the exit that supported a figure above the comparable would close most of the gap. One that supported a lower figure would widen it, and the ramp already shows the first two years missing debt service.

The Illinois property tax rate and the overnight shift. These are the two site items in the base case. The tax rate is assumed because the county's was not sourced; the assessor's actual rate would settle a line of $54,917. A staffing plan could show that one overnight associate is too few for a truck-capable site or more than needed.

Income the base case leaves out. The gaming area could in principle supply income, and Table 5 prints the size of the need: $69,503 a year to reach the binding minimum. The case forecasts none, because the rules require local permission, a licensed location and a Use Agreement, and the operator split was not sourced.

The restructure. The restructure is a smaller debenture with the bank first lien held at its minimum share and more sponsor equity, computed from the base case's own earnings. Table 15 prints it: a loan of $3,470,000, the base case's supported loan rounded down to $10,000, against the sponsor's request of $4,160,000. The bank first lien stays at $2,570,558, 50.0 percent of the project, and the gross debenture falls to $899,443. The debenture fees and administrative costs recomputed on it are $33,335, and the project's total cost at the restructured loan comes to $5,819,450. The borrower contribution to the 504 project rises to $1,704,450, 33.2 percent against a minimum of 20 percent, and the sponsor equity, all in, is $2,349,450, which is 40.4 percent of the all-in cost and $671,985 more than the request. Annual debt service falls to $294,131 and coverage is 1.25x, the assumed lender minimum. Both tests are passed: 1.25x coverage is above the 1.15x floor ^[84] and equal to the assumed lender minimum, which binds.

The restructure passes, but its price is the case's lesson. A 40.4 percent equity share is above the assumed 35 percent cap the sponsor planned to bring, so on the base case this project needs $671,985 more sponsor money than the sponsor's own pro forma asks for, in a business whose first two years do not cover debt service. A sponsor with that capital could proceed on this structure. A sponsor without it faces a choice among a smaller store, a cheaper site, a longer stretch of field evidence on volume and margin, or a different lender. Choosing among them is the study's work, and the model cannot do it.

Decision. The study would put the fuel margin history and exit-specific volume at the top of its work plan, verify the county tax rate and the overnight staffing, and deliver the restructure beside the request so the sponsor sees both the shortfall and the equity that closes it.

Questions to Ask a Feasibility Study Company

Why does the sponsor's pro forma say 1.40x and the base case 1.05x?

Because three inputs differ. The sponsor's pro forma uses the market fuel margin of 39.7 cents and no site costs beyond the chain's store expense level. The base case assumes the five-year margin of 38.3 cents, adds $50,504 for an overnight associate and adds $54,917 of Illinois property tax on value above what Casey's carries. Net operating income is $490,957 in one and $368,498 in the other. Each difference has a stated reason, and the case reports the result of each without adjusting any of them.

Why compare the store with a listed retailer's average store?

Because a credit officer would check it first. Casey's average store reported $566 thousand of store operating income ^[2], and this store, at the same volume and inside sales, earns 0.65 times that in the base case. The comparison does not prove the project right or wrong. It makes every input explain itself against a public number.

Is the single purpose reading of the contribution right?

The case assumes the higher contribution because the borrower is a new business and a fueling facility is read as a single purpose building; the rule sets the higher figure when both apply ^[59]. The development company decides how to classify the facility, so the study would get its answer in writing before the sources and uses table is final.

What should I ask before choosing a feasibility consultant for a fuel station?

Ask whether the work reconciles the pro forma to a public comparable's earnings and not only its volume; whether it shows the sponsor's figures beside its own base case and names each difference; whether volume comes from a capture count at the specific exit; whether the lender's coverage test is stated and the result shown under it, with a restructure if it fails; and whether the report records what it could not source. SBA may require a study as a loan condition ^[87], but that rule does not say who writes it or how good it must be.