Coastal Marina Feasibility Study for SBA, USDA and Bank Loans

A coastal wet-slip marina is financed on three things the sponsor's pro forma usually leaves out: the share of revenue that is transient under SBA's marina rule, the remaining term and assignability of the submerged-lands lease the docks sit on, and the cost of insuring floating structures that the National Flood Insurance Program will not touch. MMCG Invest prepares coastal marina feasibility studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry and conventional financing that classify every revenue line by stay length, read the lease against the loan maturity, build the dock and seawall cost from public bid records, run the storm, insurance and sea-level cases as numbers, and report the debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) by year against the floor the program applies.

The coastal marina is the format SBA lenders see most and the one its rules fit worst. Under SOP 50 10 8, carried into SOP 50 10 8.1 for applications received on or after October 1, 2026, hotels, motels, RV parks, marinas and campgrounds are eligible rental businesses only if more than 50 percent of the business's revenue for the prior year comes from transients who stay 30 days or less at a time, with a start-up tested on its projections. The public record on coastal marinas points the other way. Sun Communities' marina segment, which was Safe Harbor until its $5.65 billion sale to Blackstone Infrastructure in April 2025, earned $27.7 million of transient revenue on $460.3 million of real property revenue in fiscal 2024, 6.0 percent, with 31.9 percent of the segment's revenue in Florida, 8.9 percent in Rhode Island and 8.0 percent in Georgia. Safe Harbor's 2019 disclosure said 93 percent of wet slip income was annual or seasonal. A 2004 Maryland Sea Grant survey found 10.3 percent of sampled Chesapeake slips generally available to transients. The Port of Edmonds, on Puget Sound, budgets guest moorage at 2.8 percent of 2026 marina revenue. A coastal marina on annual contracts does not pass the rule on dockage alone, and the study's first job is to say so and to show what fuel, transient dockage, rentals and month-to-month contracts add on each reading of a rule SBA has not interpreted in writing.

The second reason is the water. The docks sit on sovereignty submerged lands in Florida, on state aquatic lands in Washington, on a submerged-lands easement in North Carolina, under a tidal wetlands license in Maryland, or on a port district or municipal ground lease, and the SBA leasehold rules require the instrument to run at least as long as the loan and to be assignable. The third is the storm. Fort Myers Beach took a surge above 15 feet in Hurricane Ian in 2022, Sun recorded $4.4 million of marina impairments from Helene and Milton in 2024, Gulfport's municipal marina took two years from Helene to Corps approval of its 56-slip rebuild, and NFIP does not insure boat repair docks, boat storage over water, or any deck, pier or dock outside the building. The general marina method and the full SOP 50 10 8.1 treatment are on the marina feasibility study hub.

A coastal marina is a 7(a) or 504 borrower by exception, and the eligibility tests come before the coverage test. The transient rule is applied to the operating business, which in an Eligible Passive Company structure is the Operating Company that holds the slips, the fuel dock and the store under a lease from the EPC that runs at least the loan term. Marinas are on SBA's list of limited or single purpose property examples, so the 504 contribution is 15 percent, and 20 percent for a borrower operating two years or less, under 13 CFR 120.910. Occupancy under 13 CFR 120.131 is measured on the water as well as the land, because SOP 50 10 8.1 counts "boat slips and docks for marinas" as rentable property actively used in the business; a leased restaurant or brokerage counts against the 51 percent existing or 60 percent new-construction test, slip customers do not. A marina inside a Coastal Barrier Resources System unit is ineligible under 13 CFR 120.175 and 16 U.S.C. 3502, which defines federal financial assistance to include a loan guaranty. Every marina loan needs a Phase I because NAICS 713930 is on SOP Appendix 6 and because fuel is dispensed at the dock. The rules are cited in full on the SBA regulatory spine and the program pages for SBA 7(a) and SBA 504.

An acquisition follows Appendix 15: 1.25 times historical coverage on the last fiscal year or two-year average, a 10 percent injection that cannot be reduced with standby seller debt limited to half of it, a Quality of Earnings report at a $3 million business purchase price, and a 10-year term unless special use property real estate is 85 percent or more of value. The acquisition page carries the detail: marina acquisition feasibility study.

A rural coastal marina, in a county town under 50,000 people outside an urbanized area, is a USDA Business and Industry borrower under 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8) as a privately owned tourist and recreation facility, with no transient rule, 20 to 25 percent equity under 5001.105(d), a 40-year maximum term, and a mandatory independent feasibility study above $1 million to a new business under 5001.306(a)(3)(i). Fiscal 2026 terms of 85 percent, 3.0 percent and 0.55 percent remain published as of October 9, 2026. See the USDA feasibility study page and the USDA regulatory spine. Conventional lenders underwrite the same study to 1.20 to 1.35 times on a going-concern appraisal, and they are the fallback for the metropolitan marina that fails the transient rule.

Revenue is built per linear foot by contract type and length class. MMCG's October 2026 panel of posted coastal schedules puts annual or long-term wet slips at $8.63 per foot per month at Gulfport and $16.00 to $18.00 at Vero Beach on Florida's municipal schedules, $27.50 at the City of Miami's Dinner Key effective November 1, 2025, $21.00 at a Charleston marina, $6.50 on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal in Virginia, $72 per foot per year at Havre de Grace on the upper Chesapeake and about $85 at the Navy's Annapolis marina, $10.20 to $13.17 at the Kitsap County ports before Washington's 12.84 percent leasehold excise tax, and $16.33 to $27.85 at Shilshole Bay under the Port of Seattle's 2026 tariff. New England prices by the season, $140 to $210 per foot for May to October on Cape Cod. Transient rates run $3.00 to $4.00 per foot per night at Annapolis City Dock, $7.00 at Miami, $2.50 to $3.58 at Shilshole and $3.50 to $4.50 on Cape Cod, which is 3.0 to 7.6 times the per-night equivalent of the contract rate across the panel. Private asking rates are reported as posted, never as achieved.

Occupancy is read by length class from waitlists, because almost nobody publishes it. Washington's Puget Sound analysis found 30-foot and larger slips generally full and smaller slips vacant off-peak, with marina length averaging 10 percent more than registered hull length and registrations of boats over 50 feet growing 2.8 percent a year while the 26 to 40 foot classes were flat; Annapolis City Marina posts "All Slips Filled" at 41 feet and over; Anacortes Marina's waitlist is closed for 44 to 60 foot slips and open for 32 to 40; private Kitsap marinas offer the first month free. Safe Harbor told investors in 2023 that 89 percent of its marinas carried a waitlist, 81 percent of them coastal. The study sets stabilized occupancy at 90 percent unless the subject's own waitlist by length proves more, and it maps the slip mix against the county registration mix by length class: Lee County, Florida's 26 to 40 foot pleasure class grew 10 percent from 2019 to 2024 while the total fleet was flat, and Anne Arundel County's slip supply grew from 1,767 in 1980 to 12,035 in 2018 while Maryland's registrations fell 18 percent from their 2005 peak.

The benchmarks set the shape of the rest. Safe Harbor's 2019 gross profit came 68 percent from storage, 12 percent from service, 6 percent from commercial leases, 4 percent from fuel and 2 percent from rentals; Sun's fiscal 2024 real property revenue was $9,440 per space at a 63 percent NOI margin before service and overhead, and its service, retail and dining lines ran about an 11 percent margin. Fuel was 12 to 17 percent of revenue at the Port of Edmonds and the Sacramento marina fund on a 20 to 38 percent gross margin. Edmonds budgets 2026 payroll at 29.6 percent of revenue, insurance at 3.8 percent, utilities at 2.9 percent and repairs at 9.3 percent, and Safe Harbor ran about 5.3 property staff per 100 wet slips. MMCG models an independent coastal marina at a real property NOI margin in the mid-fifties, labeled as its judgment, and tests the determination at the institutional margin and at the lower blended margin that applies once a service yard or restaurant is added.

The lease is the collateral, and the study reads it clause by clause. Florida's Board of Trustees leases sovereignty submerged lands under Chapter 18-21 for a standard term the rule text puts at five years and the Department's FAQ at ten for a 90 percent first-come marina, extended terms to 25 years, rent at the greater of a base rate of $0.156623 per square foot reset each March 1 or 6 percent of gross income from the sovereign lands, assignment only with prior written consent, renewal at the lessor's sole option, and a practice, reported by Florida counsel, of not executing consents to mortgages. North Carolina's easement under G.S. 146-12 runs 50 years with one 50-year renewal at $1,000 per acre of footprint, issues within 75 days of a complete application, transfers to the next upland owner by notice within 12 months, and runs with the land. Washington's DNR leases aquatic lands for up to 30 years at upland value times lease area times 0.30 times a 3.00 percent rate of return plus 12.84 percent leasehold excise tax, and its recent private marina authorizations are posted at 12 years. Maryland's Board of Public Works license transfers on written request from the new riparian owner under COMAR 23.02.04.17, and a new or expanded marina must show an alternatives analysis, a pumpout and consistency with the local marina plan. Port and municipal instruments run from management agreements with no leasehold at all to ground leases with leasehold mortgagee articles, and only the last carries a loan. SBA's leasehold chapter requires the term to equal or exceed the loan, an assignment of lease and a landlord's waiver, and ground lease clauses on encumbrance, amendment, lender cure and proceeds, and says nothing specific about submerged lands; the study writes the extension, consent and estoppel into the conditions for counsel. The state pages for Florida, North Carolina, Washington and Maryland carry the state requirements.

New docks, dredging and bulkheads need Section 10 and Section 404 authorization from the Corps, Section 401 certification from the state and coastal zone consistency under Section 307. The 2026 Nationwide Permits took effect March 15, 2026 and run to March 15, 2031; the Corps' own figures put a nationwide permit at 40 days and a standard individual permit at 217 days from a complete application, with districts citing 120 days or more where Endangered Species Act consultation or state certification applies. In Puget Sound the Salish Sea Nearshore Programmatic covers repair and replacement within the existing footprint with habitat offsets, and the hydraulic code limits in-water work to roughly July 15 or August 1 through February 15. In Florida the manatee protection plan sets the slip count. Berkeley's dock replacement was confined to a June to November window, Port Orchard's $17 million to $20 million breakwater had every 2026 bid rejected, and Vero Beach took seven years from concept to opening. The 2010 ADA Standards require one accessible slip per 25 up to 100 slips and five for 151 to 300, with 60-inch clear pier space and an accessible route.

Dock cost is read from public bids and grant budgets, never from a rule of thumb. In-water slip construction ran about $49,600 per slip at Ludington, Michigan in 2025, about $100,000 per slip at Berkeley, where the Dutra Group's $7,812,000 low bid for 79 concrete floating slips on concrete piles with gangways, utilities and fire suppression came in 18 percent above the engineer's estimate in 2024, about $100,000 at Conneaut, Ohio and about $175,000 at Bristol, Pennsylvania in the fiscal 2025 Boating Infrastructure Grant budgets, with transient side-tie docks at $996 to $4,719 per linear foot. Sarasota's marina seawall came to about $3,700 per linear foot in 2026 and Annapolis City Dock's cantilevered sheet-pile bulkhead to about $8,860 in 2016. A replacement fuel system ran from $358,575 for one Michigan tank to $2 million for the Port of Everett's two 30,000-gallon underground tanks, the first phase of an $8.1 million fuel dock program. Small-basin dredging ran $42 to $57 per cubic yard, and Florida charges $1.25 per cubic yard to sever sovereignty material. Design and permitting ran 9.8 percent of Dunedin's seawall award and Berkeley carried a 10 percent contingency and needed 18.

The capital stack is written to the program: a 504 first mortgage of at least 50 percent, a debenture of up to 40 percent and $5.5 million at 20 or 25 years with the October 2026 effective rate of 6.97 percent, and the borrower's 15 or 20 percent; a 7(a) loan of up to $5 million at a maximum of Prime plus 3.0 percent, 10.00 percent in October 2026, with fiscal 2027 fees of 2 to 3.75 percent and a 0.55 percent annual fee, waived on loans of $700,000 or less in a rural county; or a B&I guarantee at 20 to 25 percent equity. Boating Infrastructure Grants of up to $300,000 in Tier 1 and $1.5 million in Tier 2 at a 25 percent match fund transient facilities for boats 26 feet and longer at marinas that allow public access, and Clean Vessel Act grants reimburse up to 75 percent of a pumpout, both through the state agency and both beside the debt rather than inside it.

The study reports DSCR by year against 1.15 times on a standard 7(a) or 504 loan and 1.25 times historical on an Appendix 15 acquisition, with a conventional covenant of 1.20 to 1.35 times shown where SBA is unavailable. The cases are the coast's own: rate per foot and occupancy by length class, fuel gallons and margin, insurance escalated at the 12 to 18 percent a year that Risk Strategies forecast for marinas and tested at a doubled named-storm deductible, a storm-loss year with downtime from seven weeks at Snook Bight to three years at Fish-Tale after Ian, and the tidal-flooding trend: Annapolis logged a record 18 high-tide flood days in the year to April 2020 against two a year in the mid-1990s, with NOAA projecting 75 to 115 days a year by the 2050s. Seasonality is modeled monthly because Great Lakes and New England marinas collect most dockage as a prepaid spring fee, Havre de Grace taking half by December 1 and the balance by February 1, while Safe Harbor's 2024 NOI ran $56.9 million, $77.7 million, $85.1 million and $70.4 million by quarter. The transient rule is run as its own sensitivity on three readings, and the determination states which reading it rests on.

A MMCG coastal marina study includes the eligibility analysis with the transient share on each reading, the tenure analysis with the lease classified and the extension, consent and estoppel conditions written for counsel, the registration and slip-length market analysis, the competitive census with posted rates by type, the FEMA, CBRS and species screens, the dock, seawall and fuel system cost tested against public bids, the capital stack by program, the DSCR schedule by year, the storm, insurance and tidal cases, the collateral and insurance discussion, and a signed conclusion. Standard delivery is nine to sixteen business days; expedited delivery in five to seven is available. Fees begin at $4,900 for a single-site SBA 7(a) study and run $7,500 to $15,000 for 504, acquisition and USDA studies. Revisions required by the lender or agency are made at no additional cost under MMCG's written acceptance guarantee. See MMCG's feasibility study methodology and where we work.

Chesapeake wet-slip marina acquisition with fuel dock under Appendix 15, Anne Arundel County, Maryland: a 180-slip purchase declined on the seller's pro forma, conditionally approvable at 1.25 times historical coverage only where the prior-year revenue passes the transient test and Puget Sound marina on a DNR aquatic lands lease with fuel dock, Kitsap County, Washington: a 300-slip acquisition not eligible for SBA on any reading of the transient rule, and financeable as restructured at $2,670,000 on a conventional loan at 1.56 times historical coverage with $2,000,000 of fuel system replacement funded at closing. The reservoir version is on the lake and river marina feasibility study page, the storage version on the dry-stack boat storage feasibility study page, and the marina with a restaurant, lodge or slip condominiums on the waterfront mixed-use feasibility study page.