Gas Station Feasibility Study in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metro Area

Fuel retail in a very large metro

Across FY2017 to FY2026, this bi-state metro carries 98 gas station and truck stop approvals in SBA's files, worth $60.3 million in gross dollars. By count of such loans the area stands at 11 of 600 metro and micro areas, yet the class sits at only 17 of 39 inside the area's own mix. The location quotient of 0.21x explains the gap: a fuel retail loan is a much rarer event here than the nationwide mix would lead one to expect. The area is big in absolute terms and slight in relative terms, and a lender reading the page should hold both facts at once.

Cancellations, where this cell stands apart

Cancellation is the metric that makes this class in this area stand apart, and its floor reads 28.4% for approvals dated FY2017 through FY2024. Read it as a minimum, since any cancellation missing from SBA's files is missing from it too. The ceiling that would count undisbursed loans as cancelled is withheld. The charge-off rate is not reported at all, because Loan Analytics holds back any rate whose FY2017 to FY2021 cohort is thinner than 30 loans. Neither blank means zero. For a borrower, an approval is not yet a closing, so the study should show that the site, the entitlements and the budget will still stand when funds are drawn.

Loan size, programs and current holders

The median loan is $267,500, a quarter-scale 0.25x of the class median nationwide. Loans in the central half span $50,000 up to $704,500, a wide band that spans small working-capital requests and real-estate-backed financings. The program split is 93 SBA 7(a) loans and 5 SBA 504 loans, with 13.3% flagged as franchise units. Lender figures below describe loans that each named institution holds or held according to SBA, and they say nothing of who made them. TD Bank, National Association holds 29 of the 7(a) loans, $2.9 million in all. Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company holds 13, at $4.3 million, NewBank holds 9, at $7.8 million, and Santander Bank, National Association holds 5, at $890,000. The list shows whose names appear in this record for the class, and no more than that.

Counties and the years on file

Nassau County, NY and Suffolk County, NY each carry 18 loans. Bergen County, NJ has 8, Morris County, NJ has 7, and Middlesex County, NJ, Passaic County, NJ and Westchester County, NY have 5 each. The two Long Island counties therefore outweigh every New Jersey county, so a site in Bergen or Morris draws on a thinner local record. Annual counts read 8 loans in FY2017, 7 in FY2018 and 6 in FY2019, then 14 in FY2021, 10 in FY2023 and 13 in FY2024. FY2025 brought 15 loans and $13.6 million, the dollar peak, and FY2026, a complete fiscal year, shows 16 loans and $5.3 million, the highest loan count. No figure is printed for FY2020 or FY2022, where the loan count is too thin to show, and neither is an empty year.

Questions for the project

A fuel retail project here needs a study that tests gallons against the traffic on the actual corridor, the margin on inside sales, the cost of tanks, canopy and environmental work, and whether earnings cover the loan payment at a cautious volume. Loans in this class run well under the national median, so an amount toward the top of the central band calls for a stated reason, and the appraiser will price the site on its operating earnings. The industry code pools truck stops, travel centers and stations lacking a convenience store, and charging for electric vehicles has no code at all, so neither can be isolated in these figures. Metro placement follows the project county by name; any record with a county outside the 2023 delineation is excluded.