SBA 7(a) Gas Station Feasibility Study in Connecticut

Connecticut fuel stops: tiny typical loans beside a few large ones

Connecticut's 7(a) gas-station and truck-stop lending is defined by a median that is a fraction of the national one. SBA approved 68 loans from FY2017 to FY2026, worth $52.2 million, and the median of $262,500 equals just 0.24x of the figure for the class nationally. Yet the middle of the range starts at $50,000 and reaches $1.1 million, and the dollar total shows that a few big loans lift the average sharply. In the Connecticut class table, fuel stops sit at 10 of 39, and by loan count the state is 20th nationally. Franchised sites account for 10.3% of the loans.

A lender table with one outlier

Celtic Bank Corporation holds 16 loans for $34.0 million, an average far larger than anyone else's. Santander Bank, National Association holds 14 for only $3.3 million. Ten loans sit with Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company ($2.1 million) and 9 with TD Bank, National Association ($2.7 million); Newtek Small Business Finance, LLC has 5 ($3.4 million). Holders are as SBA records them now. County rows here are Connecticut planning regions: Capitol has 13 loans, Hartford 9, South Central CT and Western CT 7 each, and Fairfield and Naugatuck Valley 6 each. Annual dollars bounce dramatically, from $25,000 in FY2018 to $10.4 million in FY2023 and $400,000 in FY2025.

Cancellation, and a loss rate left blank

Cancellation is at least 19.0%, with the same figure as the ceiling, one of the heavier readings in this group. Leaving the loss rate blank is deliberate: Connecticut's earliest funded group is too thin for a percentage, so the gap stands for neither zero nor an estimate.

Limits of the fuel-stop code

Membership in this class turns on the borrower's registered industry, not on what the site sells. Travel centers and truck stops blend with ordinary fuel sites in the data, and electric vehicle charging has no separate entry in the industry index, so a charging-focused project is not visible here. A study must therefore say exactly what the site is: fuel only, fuel with a convenience store, a truck stop with services, or a mixed format.

Testing a Connecticut fuel project

Demand starts with traffic past the site, fuel volumes at comparable stations, the convenience-store attach rate and competing sites at the same interchange or corridor. Fuel margins are thin and volatile, so the forecast should rest on in-store and service income as well as gallons. Environmental condition is a central cost item: tanks, soil and groundwater history, remediation liability and insurance. Costs should be split among land, building, tanks and dispensers, and equipment. The payment must be covered when fuel margins compress. With a 19.0% cancellation figure, evidence of environmental clearance, zoning and brand approval belongs in the proposal. The wide Connecticut range means a request at the top of the central half should state whether it includes real estate and a going business.