Charter School Feasibility Study in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ Metro Area

Phoenix schools: fifth in the country for the class

Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler ranks 5 of 154 nationally for elementary and secondary school loans, a class that includes charter schools, and the 2.69x location quotient shows the Phoenix area giving schools a bigger slice of SBA activity than the country does. Within the metro the class sits seventeenth, 17 of 39. The 38 loans total $44.7 million across FY2017 to FY2026. A Phoenix borrower asking for $660,000 would be asking for the median, 0.97x on the national scale, inside a central range of $252,500 to $2.0 million.

The Phoenix school loans use 7(a) 27 times and 504 11 times, so owned buildings play a real part. The school code is shared by charter and private schools, and the two cannot be told apart. SBA does not lend to nonprofits, and most charter schools are nonprofits, so the loans counted here mostly went to private and for-profit operators; a charter-school study should treat this record as indirect evidence. The franchise share is withheld.

Holder and county

On the 504 side the only holder to reach the listing threshold is Arizona Capital Source, with 5 loans and $5.5 million. The institutions named here are simply those SBA shows as current holders, and the table passes no judgment on them. All 38 loans sit in Maricopa County, AZ, which makes county and metro the same market for these loans.

Only FY2018 and FY2020 print, each with 5 loans, for $7.9 million and $5.5 million. Every other year is held back. Loss measures for Phoenix schools, cancellation and charge-off alike, are absent from SBA's file because the loans are too few; absent does not mean zero. Metro membership is decided county by county, so a project in a county the 2023 delineation does not recognise for Phoenix does not appear.

What a Phoenix school study has to test

A school study tests enrollment demand and the population of school-age children within the draw, the funding and charter or accreditation framework that governs the operator, and the competing schools. Building, land and fit-out costs are set against the $660,000 midpoint, and tuition or per-pupil funding must carry debt service coverage. The appraisal treats a special-purpose building with care. A report signed by Daniel Smith, MAI, goes to the borrower, and what the lender does next is outside our control.