Fitness Center Feasibility Study in Georgia

Georgia's fitness center lending is mostly franchised and larger than the national norm. Of 384 loans approved from FY2017 to FY2026, worth $241.0 million, 59.6% went to franchise units, and the median loan of $360,400 is 1.39x the national median for gyms. Georgia ranks 9 of 54 among states, fitness is 7 of 39 among Georgia's classes, and the location quotient of 1.05x shows fitness taking about its national share of Georgia's SBA lending. The Georgia gym cell clears our distinctness margin on none of its three tested measures, so its case rests on size and structure rather than on an outlier outcome.

Outcomes and the opening year

Georgia gyms carry a charge-off floor of 6.7% on the 149 loans disbursed in FY2017 to FY2021; 4.7% failed inside five years of approval, which puts most recorded losses early in the term. Between approval and funding, 12.1% to 13.2% of approvals were cancelled, the floor and ceiling of that measure. For a gym, the stretch between approval and opening covers build-out, equipment delivery and presales, and each can slip. Lenders price that risk; a borrower who arrives with a signed lease, a franchisor-approved site and a presale plan removes part of it.

Who holds Georgia's fitness loans

SBA 7(a) carries 352 loans and SBA 504 carries 32. The Huntington National Bank holds 64 loans worth $26.3 million; Citizens Bank holds 17 worth $13.7 million, Stearns Bank National Association 17 worth $3.9 million and Live Oak Banking Company 12 worth $11.3 million. Capital Partners Certified Development Company tops the Georgia 504 list with 10 loans, and Florida Business Development Corporation, with 8, is an out-of-state development company active in Georgia. SBA attributes each gym loan to its current holder, which is the basis for these counts. Volume has risen from 22 approvals in FY2020 to 55 in FY2025 and 49 in FY2026, when dollars reached $42.6 million.

Testing a Georgia gym before the loan

Demand concentrates in metro Atlanta: Fulton County has 89 approvals, Cobb 50, DeKalb 35 and Gwinnett 32. A study has to count members, not square feet, testing the population inside the brand's radius against the clubs already open, many of them SBA-financed. Cost testing covers the build-out and the equipment package, which the middle half of loans, $194,250 to $638,325, shows is substantial. Model coverage of debt service on a membership ramp matching what comparable franchise units in Georgia achieved, not the brand's best markets, with attrition built in. If the borrower buys an existing club, the valuation has to support the price paid for the membership base. No industry-code caveat applies to Georgia's fitness cell.