Warehouse Feasibility Study in Ohio

Ohio warehousing: high rank, light tickets

Ohio stands out in this class for how often SBA has backed storage and distribution businesses rather than for how much it lent each time. From FY2017 to FY2026 the state logged 32 loans worth $16.1 million, which puts it 6 of 46 among states for warehouse and distribution loans. Within Ohio itself the class is far down the list, 23 of 39, and the location quotient of 0.85x confirms that warehousing is a lighter ingredient of Ohio lending than of lending across America. A borrower in Columbus or Cleveland should therefore treat this as a niche that a handful of lenders know well, not a mainstream product.

Size, program mix and lenders

The median loan is $160,500, only 0.32x the typical figure for warehousing elsewhere, with the central band of approvals running $73,950 to $745,000. Tickets of that size point to small operators rather than large owner-built distribution centers. SBA 7(a) accounts for 29 loans and SBA 504 for 3, and franchising reaches 12.5% of loans, a share that is surprising for a warehouse class and worth asking a lender about. The Huntington National Bank holds 14 of the 7(a) loans, worth $4.1 million, so one name dominates the lender table. Franklin County leads with 9 loans, Cuyahoga has 5, Hamilton, Lorain and Williams have 3 each, and Summit has 2.

The rates that are not printed

Neither the share of approvals cancelled nor the share of funded loans charged off appears for this cell, because the cohort behind each one is too small to publish. Treat that absence as missing information. It does not mean that no loan was cancelled or lost, and no one can read a spotless record into the gap.

Questions an Ohio warehouse study must answer

Because the typical request is modest, the opening task is deciding whether the project is a leased fit-out or a purchased building, since the two carry very different collateral and appraisal questions. Demand should be tested through the tenants or customers the operator can name, the throughput the space can handle, and the freight corridors and last-mile reach of the specific site. Cost should be checked against racking, dock doors and clear height, and debt service coverage should survive a quarter of weak volume. An appraiser will value an owned building on rent a stranger would pay, which can differ from what an owner-operator earns.

A coding boundary matters here: the class captures public warehousing only. Owner-occupied warehouses that serve a manufacturer or a retailer are filed under that owner's own industry, so the figures understate total warehouse financing in Ohio.