Grocery Store Feasibility Study in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ Metro Area

The top grocery metro in SBA files

Grocery stores in the New York region rank 1 of 412 metro and micro areas, with 559 loans approved from FY2017 to FY2026 and $534.4 million in gross dollars. Locally grocery holds seventh place among 39 classes. A location quotient of 2.07x says the class takes a much larger local share of lending than it holds nationally, a much larger share than the nation shows. The franchise share is 0.00%; not one loan is flagged as franchised.

Wide loan range, concentrated lenders

The median loan is $445,000, 1.26x the class median nationwide, yet the spread is wide, its mid-range loans clustering from $100,000 up to $1.5 million. A single study cannot assume a typical loan. Of the 559 loans, 528 sit under 7(a) and 31 under 504. TD Bank, National Association is shown as holder of 81 7(a) loans worth $10.1 million, while Bank of Hope holds 38 worth $62.0 million and Metro City Bank 28 worth $58.7 million; Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company holds 27 and JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association 20. Those dollar figures imply very different average loan sizes among holders, a feature of SBA's records and not a verdict on any lender. For 504, Trenton Business Assistance Corporation holds 16 loans worth $25.1 million.

Counties and the yearly pattern

Kings County leads with 124 loans, ahead of Queens with 82, New York County with 68 and the Bronx with 62, with Nassau and Suffolk at 25 apiece and Essex, NJ at 23. Approvals were 94 loans and $81.2 million in FY2017, 29 loans in FY2020, and a dollar peak of $98.4 million on 62 loans in FY2021. FY2024 shows 53 loans but only $20.9 million, so the recent dollar volume is far under the early years.

Outcomes and what the study has to test

This class carries heavy attrition: a cancellation floor of 22.3% on FY2017 to FY2024 approvals and a charge-off floor of 14.1% on FY2017 to FY2021 disbursements. For the 248 loans in the five-year cohort, 5.6% were charged off within that window. Loan Analytics withholds the cancellation ceiling because too few loans support it, so it must not be read as zero. A loan counts toward the region only if its project county could be placed in the July 2023 delineation by name. A feasibility study for a grocery store here has to test the catchment block by block rather than borough by borough, lease terms and build-out cost in dense space, supplier and delivery logistics, debt service coverage across the wide loan range, and an appraisal that splits property value from the going concern.