SBA 7(a) Liquor Store Feasibility Study in Illinois

Cook County and a clean five-year record

Illinois liquor stores borrowing under SBA 7(a) are concentrated in Cook County, which has 141 of the 271 loans approved from FY2017 to FY2026. They total $213.0 million in gross dollars. The state ranks eighth by loan count, and liquor stores are ninth of 39 among Illinois classes. A median loan of $454,000 is 1.03x the national median, almost exactly on the norm, with $206,500 to $1.1 million spanning the central half. Franchising is almost absent at 0.37%.

Outcomes

Across the 111 funded loans in the cohort, the to-date charge-off floor is 1.8% and the first-five-years floor prints as 0.00%. A zero floor is not a promise, since open loans can still fail. Cancellation reached at least 13.8% of FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, and 16.2% when loans that never funded are treated as cancelled. The gap between those two figures is the widest part of the record, and a borrower should expect a licence transfer or lease approval to take time.

Who holds the loans

Byline Bank is first with 57 loans worth $63.9 million. Behind it come The Huntington National Bank with 32 worth $8.7 million, U.S. Bank, National Association with 26 worth $11.8 million, Millennium Bank with 14 worth $18.5 million, and Centerstone SBA Lending, Inc. with 12 worth $13.3 million. Millennium and Byline hold the largest loans on average. The listing shows who holds the loans now and cannot show how any lender decides. DuPage County has 30 loans, Lake 26 and Will 10. Approvals reached 42 in FY2025, then fell to 19 in FY2026.

Questions for an Illinois store study

Money under 7(a) can go to a purchase, stock, fixtures or improvements, and the study must say which. Licensing governs a liquor business, and the type, the local approval and the transfer conditions can decide a deal, so the study should set out what has been confirmed. It should test the trade area's households, nearby competing stores and grocers, parking and visibility, and margin after inventory, rent and shrink. Cook County sites differ from collar-county sites in rent and customer mix, and the study should say which it is. Loan payment coverage should be run with sales below plan, and an appraiser will value the store as a going concern, with inventory counted apart from goodwill.