USDA B&I Feasibility Study Case Study: A Travel Center with Video Gaming Terminals at I-57 Exit 151 in Effingham County, Illinois, Feasible as Resized

A new travel center with ten Illinois video gaming terminals proposed on 12 acres at the I-57 and Watson interchange in Effingham County, Illinois, nine miles south of the Effingham chain cluster at Exit 160 in the county that ranks first in the state for video gaming income per resident. The gaming revenue passes the USDA Business and Industry 15 percent test with room to spare, at 1.3 percent of gross revenue on the establishment's share and 3.9 percent on gross terminal income, but the sponsor's proposal of a 7,500 SF building with 85 truck parking spaces at a $14,597,650 cost covers at 0.85x in Year 3 with the gaming and 0.55x without it. Resized to 6,500 SF, six diesel lanes, eight auto positions and 60 truck parking spaces at an $11,936,350 cost, financed with an $8,952,262 B&I guaranteed loan and $2,984,088 of equity, the travel center covers at 1.53x in Year 3 with the gaming and 1.17x without it, 1.64x and 1.27x in Year 4. Determination: not feasible as proposed; feasible as resized, conditioned on the Rural Development State Office's written position on the gaming revenue, an IDOT count at the exit, the Illinois Gaming Board license path and the county's entitlement.

Model study prepared by MMCG Invest | Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA | October 2, 2026

MMCG concludes that the proposed travel center at the I-57 and Watson interchange in Effingham County, Illinois is not feasible as proposed and is feasible as resized. The proposal fails on cost against the diesel volume a secondary interchange nine miles from the Effingham chain cluster can win: at a $14,597,650 total project cost for a 7,500 SF building, 85 truck parking spaces and a five-tank system, and a stabilized volume of 3,000,000 diesel gallons, the travel center covers its debt at 0.85x in Year 3 with the video gaming revenue and 0.55x without it, and does not reach 1.0x by Year 5. The gaming is not the problem. Ten terminals at $900,000 of net terminal income, a 31 percent haircut from the statewide average for ten-terminal sites, leave the establishment $292,500 a year, which is 1.3 percent of the Project's gross revenue; even on gross terminal income the share is 3.9 percent, and the 15 percent limit in 7 CFR 5001.127(b) would bind only if gross revenue fell below about $1,950,000 on the establishment basis or $6,000,000 on the gross basis. The problem is $2,660,000 of truck court, building and reserve that the fuel and inside sales at this exit do not carry.

Resized to 6,500 SF, six diesel lanes, eight auto positions and 60 truck parking spaces at an $11,936,350 total project cost, with a stabilized volume of 3,400,000 diesel gallons and 1,200,000 gasoline gallons, $3,900,000 of nonfuel sales and the same ten terminals, the travel center covers at 1.16x in Year 2, 1.53x in Year 3, 1.64x in Year 4 and 1.73x in Year 5 with the gaming, and at 0.85x, 1.17x, 1.27x and 1.35x without it. The structure is an $8,952,262 Business and Industry guaranteed loan at 75 percent of cost, amortized over 30 years within the program's 40-year maximum, and $2,984,088 of equity, the 25 percent of total project cost the program requires of a new business whose lender requests the loan note guarantee before construction is complete. MMCG presents coverage with and without gaming because the regulation's exclusion for State-authorized lottery proceeds applies only as approved by the Agency and only where the activity raises funds for the approved project, which a truck stop's terminal commissions do not; the gaming is modeled as counted toward the 15 percent test and as upside to the coverage, and the determination is conditioned on the State Office's written position, an IDOT classified count at the exit at or above the underwriting basis of 26,000 vehicles per day and 38 percent trucks, the Illinois Gaming Board large truck stop license path, and the county's entitlement of the parcel.

This is an MMCG model study: a complete feasibility analysis of a travel center on a model parcel at a real interchange, prepared with public data to show USDA guaranteed lenders and sponsors how MMCG tests a video-gaming truck stop against the corridor, the competitive set, the gaming regulation and the B&I ineligibility test before the site plan is drawn. It is not a client engagement. The parcel is a model site described by its acreage and interchange; MMCG has no relationship with any landowner, broker or sponsor at the exit, and the analysis does not represent an offer, an appraisal or a recommendation to buy any parcel. Figures drawn from the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Illinois Gaming Board, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Federal Highway Administration, TravelCenters of America's last public filings and the operators' own location pages are identified as such. Figures labeled MMCG assumption or MMCG estimate are underwriting inputs set by MMCG from industry benchmarks, and items that could not be verified from a primary source at the study date are listed in the Conditions and Limitations section rather than estimated silently. In particular, the IDOT count at Exit 151, the location-level terminal income of the competing truck stops, the asking price and zoning of any specific parcel at the exit, the current fuel supply at the Watson and Edgewood interchanges, and Effingham County's composite property tax rate were not confirmed from primary sources at the study date and are carried as stated assumptions.

The Project will operate as a 24-hour independent travel center with a licensed video gaming room on 12.0 acres at the I-57 and Watson interchange, Exit 151, in Effingham County, Illinois, nine miles south of the I-57 and I-70 split at Effingham and 56 miles north of the I-57 and I-64 junction at Mount Vernon, on the north-south lane that carries Chicago freight to Memphis and the Gulf. The physical program as resized comprises a single-story 6,500 SF masonry building housing a 2,900 SF convenience store with a beer cave, a fountain and coffee program and a hot case, a 48-seat diner with a counter and a kitchen open 24 hours, a restricted-access adults-only gaming room of 600 SF with ten video gaming terminals, a driver lounge with six private showers, laundry and a fuel desk, restrooms sized for a truck stop, an office and back-of-house, together with a six-lane diesel canopy carrying dual-sided high-flow dispensers with diesel exhaust fluid at every lane, an eight-position auto fueling canopy, a 60-space heavy-duty truck court with 12 reserved spaces under a paid reservation program, a CAT scale, a five-tank double-wall underground storage system holding 120,000 gallons with interstitial monitoring, and a lighted pylon sign visible from both directions of I-57. The travel center will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a general manager, two assistant managers and 20 full-time-equivalent store, diner, fuel desk, gaming attendant and porter staff for 23 FTE. The sponsor will hold the land, improvements and business in a single operating company that borrows the B&I guaranteed loan and holds the Illinois Gaming Board licensed video gaming location license, with the terminals owned and placed by a licensed terminal operator under the statutory revenue split and the principals providing the personal guarantees the program requires. The Project is positioned as the full-service stop between the Effingham cluster and Mount Vernon on a 65-mile stretch of I-57 with no chain travel center, with diesel priced at or within two cents of the Effingham chains' posted cash price, fleet card acceptance on the major networks, parking that does not fill by early evening, a 24-hour diner the chain stores have replaced with quick-service counters, and a gaming room that the Illinois truck stop market has made a standard amenity.

Marketing and Sales Strategy

The launch is anchored on the fleet card networks and the driver apps, with enrollment with the major fleet card processors before opening, directory and parking app listings with the reservation program live at opening, and a 90-day opening promotion of free showers with a 50-gallon fill and a loyalty card that credits diner and store purchases against fuel. The diner opens to the street as well as the fuel court and markets to Watson, Effingham and the US-45 corridor as a 24-hour sit-down restaurant, which the local market lacks south of Effingham. The gaming room is marketed within the Illinois Gaming Board's advertising rules through the terminal operator's programs and signage, and the sponsor does not rely on it for the fuel customer. Business outreach targets the regional carriers, grain haulers and agricultural cooperatives that run US-45 and Illinois 37 across I-57, offering direct-bill fuel accounts and a parking agreement for drivers resetting between Chicago and Memphis. Retention runs on the loyalty program, the diner and the reliability of the diesel price position against the Effingham cluster.

Amenities

The subject is a model 12.0-acre parcel at Exit 151, the Watson interchange on I-57, carried at $45,000 per acre, or $540,000, as an MMCG estimate for raw interchange acreage in rural Effingham County; no listing at the exit was retrieved, and the price is a disclosed assumption. Watson is a village of fewer than 1,000 residents in Effingham County, whose seat, the City of Effingham, had a 2020 Census population of 12,252 and an urban area of about 13,700 residents, so the exit is rural under 7 CFR 5001.3 without a petition and sits outside any urban area. The parcel's zoning under Effingham County's ordinance, the permitted-use status of a truck stop with video gaming, and any county site plan or access step were not verified at the study date, and the determination is conditioned on the county's entitlement.

Interstate 57 is the corridor fact, and the exit's position on it is the credit. North of the subject the I-57 and I-70 concurrency through Effingham carries about 45,400 vehicles a day with about 20,450 trucks, and IDOT's current program sheets carry I-57 north of Effingham toward Neoga at 18,900 vehicles per day with 35.7 percent trucks and the Coles County segment at 22,440 with 37.9 percent. South of the subject, the Marion to Mount Vernon corridor carries about 40,000 vehicles a day with about 14,000 trucks on IDOT's statements for its current widening program. No published count at Exit 151 was retrieved, and MMCG's underwriting basis of 26,000 vehicles per day with 38 percent trucks is an interpolation between the verified 18,900 north of Effingham on the I-57-only segment and the heavier volume toward Mount Vernon, stated as an estimate and carried as a condition. On that basis 9,880 trucks and 16,120 passenger vehicles pass the exit each day.

The hours-of-service rules place the subject on the Chicago to Memphis lane at the point where a truck that loaded in the Chicago metropolitan area in the morning has driven five to six hours and is inside its 30-minute break window, and where a northbound truck from Memphis is five hours into an 11-hour day; a property-carrying driver may drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive beyond the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty, and must take a 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving. The Effingham cluster at Exit 160, nine miles north, is where the chains capture the fleet-contract diesel on this corridor, with four branded travel centers at one interchange; the subject's demand is the truck that finds the cluster full in the evening, the truck whose fleet card routes to an independent price, and the truck that stops for the diner and the gaming room rather than the chain counter.

Stabilized diesel volume of 3,400,000 gallons a year is 9,315 gallons a day, 98 fueling trucks at an average fill of 95 gallons and 0.99 percent of the trucks passing the exit; the Year 1 figure of 2,448,000 gallons is 71 trucks and 0.71 percent. At six dual-sided lanes the stabilized figure is about 47,000 gallons a lane a month, above the 25,000 to 45,000 gallon band MMCG carries for an independent and consistent with a secondary exit nine miles from a four-brand cluster. Gasoline is modeled at 1,200,000 gallons at stabilization, 299 cars a day at 11 gallons and 1.85 percent of passing passenger vehicles. The proposal carried 3,000,000 diesel gallons and 1,100,000 gasoline gallons at an 85-space truck court; the resized program carries more fuel at a smaller court because the 60-space lot is the parking the independent's share fills, and the 85-space lot is the parking a chain node fills.

MMCG identified four branded travel centers at the Effingham cluster, one chain travel stop at Ina and three at Mount Vernon on the I-57 corridor. Truck parking counts are taken from the operators' pages where published and from directories where not, and the directory counts are flagged.

Competitor Number 1 TA Effingham This travel center is located at I-57 and I-70 Exit 160, Effingham, IL, about nine miles north of the subject. The operator's page lists six truck service bays and video gaming terminals; directories list 137 truck parking spaces. It is the largest full-service stop on the corridor and the subject's price and amenity reference.

Competitor Number 2 Flying J Effingham This travel center is located at Exit 160 across Evergreen Avenue from TA, Effingham, IL. It operates a game room and is a loyalty-network node. Its truck parking count was not retrieved from the operator's page.

Competitor Number 3 Pilot Travel Center, Effingham This travel center is located at 2500 North 3rd Street, Effingham, IL 62401, at the Exit 160 cluster. A licensed terminal operator lists video gaming terminals at the location. Its truck parking count was not retrieved from the operator's page.

Competitor Number 4 Petro Effingham This travel center is located at the Effingham cluster, Effingham, IL. It is the second TA-family location at the interchange and shares the cluster's fleet-contract diesel capture.

Competitor Number 5 Love's Travel Stop, Ina This travel stop is located at I-57 Exit 83, Ina, IL, about 68 miles south of the subject. The operator's page lists 121 truck parking spaces, three service bays and video gaming terminals, with no reserved or paid spaces listed. It is the chain's node south of Mount Vernon and the subject's reference for an Illinois chain stop with gaming.

Competitor Number 6 TA Mt. Vernon This travel center is located at I-57 and I-64 Exit 95, Mount Vernon, IL, about 56 miles south of the subject. Directories list 136 truck parking spaces.

Competitor Number 7 Pilot Travel Center, Mt. Vernon This travel center is located at the Mount Vernon junction, Mount Vernon, IL. Its truck parking count was not retrieved from the operator's page.

Competitor Number 8 Love's Travel Stop, Mt. Vernon This travel stop is located at I-64 Exit 80, Mount Vernon, IL, and opened in about 2022. Directories list 99 truck parking spaces. It is the most recent chain entrant on the corridor and the only one since 2022.

The 65 miles of I-57 between the Effingham cluster and the Mount Vernon junction hold no chain travel center, and the fuel supply at the Watson and Edgewood interchanges was not verified and is carried as independent fuel without a truck program. No travel center announced, permitted or under construction within 30 miles of the subject was identified in chain newsrooms, local news or planning agendas between 2024 and 2026. Effingham County's video gaming market is mature: 69 licensed establishments ran 390 terminals for $22,400,000 of net terminal income in fiscal year 2025, $646 per resident and first among the state's 102 counties, and the four Effingham travel centers hold the cluster's terminal play. The subject's gaming room competes for the driver who stops at Watson rather than Effingham, which is why the model haircuts the terminal income rather than carrying the county's density.

Under 7 CFR 5001.127(b), an entity is ineligible if it derives more than 15 percent of its annual gross revenue, including any lease income from space or machines, from gambling activity, excluding State-authorized lottery proceeds or Tribal-authorized gaming proceeds, as approved by the Agency, conducted for the purpose of raising funds for the approved project. Illinois regulates video gaming terminals under the Video Gaming Act as gaming, not as a lottery, and the subject's terminal commissions are operating income rather than funds raised for the project, so the study treats the gaming revenue as counted toward the 15 percent limit in every projection year and does not rely on the exclusion.

The Illinois framework fixes the subject's gaming program. A truck stop establishment is a facility of at least three acres with a convenience store, separate diesel islands and parking for commercial motor vehicles that sells at least 10,000 gallons of diesel a month and may hold up to six terminals; a large truck stop establishment is one within three road miles of a freeway interchange that sells more than 50,000 gallons of diesel a month and may hold up to ten. The subject qualifies as a large truck stop at any volume above 600,000 diesel gallons a year, which the Year 1 forecast exceeds four times over, and a truck stop without a liquor license may operate its terminals continuously. Net terminal income is taxed at 35 percent by the state from July 1, 2025, the balance is split equally between the terminal operator and the establishment, and non-home-rule municipalities may charge a terminal fee of up to $250 a year, with the county's fee carried in the gaming compliance line.

In fiscal year 2025 the 100 Illinois locations running the ten-terminal maximum averaged $1,313,230 of net terminal income, or $360 per terminal per day, and the statewide average across all terminals was $172 per terminal per day. MMCG carries the subject at $900,000 of net terminal income at stabilization, $247 per terminal per day, a 31 percent haircut from the ten-terminal average that reflects a secondary interchange competing with four cluster truck stops nine miles north, ramping from $540,000 in Year 1. After the 35 percent tax and the equal split, the establishment keeps 32.5 percent, or $292,500 at stabilization, which the study carries as revenue at a 100 percent margin with the gaming attendant in payroll and the license, fees and compliance in their own line.

The test does not bind a fuel-led travel center. It binds only where fuel is weak, and a site with $900,000 of terminal income would have to sell less than $6,000,000 of fuel and merchandise a year, about 37 percent of the subject's Year 1 forecast, before the gross-basis share reached 15 percent. The lender's exposure is the opposite one: a credit that needs the gaming to cover, which is why the study presents coverage without it and recommends that the conditional commitment size the covenant on the fuel, store, diner and parking cash flow, with the establishment share treated as upside.

Effingham County's largest city holds 12,252 residents and the exit lies outside any urban area contiguous to a city of more than 50,000, so the site is rural under 7 CFR 5001.3 without a petition. A travel center is an eligible commercial enterprise under 7 CFR 5001.105, and the gaming share is inside the 15 percent limit of 7 CFR 5001.127(b) on either basis. The borrower is a new business under 7 CFR 5001.3, which makes the independent feasibility study a requirement of 7 CFR 5001.306(a)(3)(i) for a guaranteed loan greater than $1,000,000 and sets equity under 7 CFR 5001.105 at 25 percent of total project cost where the lender requests the loan note guarantee before construction is complete. The guaranteed loan of $8,952,262 falls in the $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 tier that USDA guarantees at 80 percent in fiscal year 2026, with a 3 percent initial guarantee fee on the guaranteed amount and a 0.55 percent annual retention fee, and because it is below the $10,000,000 maximum State Director authority under RD Instruction 1901-A it is approved in the Illinois State Office. The 23 jobs created are below the 50-job threshold for Department of Labor concurrence. The feasibility study, the appraisal and the lender's fees are eligible uses of loan funds under 7 CFR 5001.121(c)(10).

The county's zoning of the parcel and its treatment of a truck stop with fuel sales, truck parking and a gaming room were not verified from the county ordinance at the study date, and the determination is conditioned on the county's entitlement, including any special use, site plan review and the IDOT access permit for the frontage road connection. The gaming license runs on a separate track: the sponsor applies to the Illinois Gaming Board for a licensed video gaming location license as a large truck stop establishment, which requires the three-acre site, the convenience store, the separate diesel islands, commercial vehicle parking and the diesel volume affidavit, together with the terminal operator's agreement, and the gaming room must be a restricted-access area for adults with the attendant and surveillance the Board's rules require. MMCG carries the Board's review inside the construction schedule so that the terminals are placed at opening, and the diesel volume affidavit for the large truck stop tier is supported by the first months of operation if the Board requires operating history rather than a forecast; the study carries the terminals from the first month as a stated assumption and tests the no-gaming case.

Water and sewer are carried as a municipal or district connection with tap and capacity fees inside the $1,000,000 site work line, together with a three-phase electrical service sized for the canopies, the refrigeration, the diner and the gaming room, and natural gas for the building. The underground storage system is five double-wall fiberglass tanks of 120,000 gallons total with secondary containment, interstitial monitoring and automatic tank gauging under the 2015 federal UST rule and the Illinois Office of the State Fire Marshal's program, carried at $700,000 installed. The site disturbs more than one acre and requires coverage under Illinois EPA's construction stormwater general permit, and the truck court drains through oil-water separation to detention. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment under ASTM E1527-21 is carried in the land cost line. Property tax is carried at $150,000 in Year 1 as an MMCG estimate of about 2.1 percent of the market value of the land and improvements, built from Illinois's 33.33 percent assessment level and a composite rate for an unincorporated Effingham County parcel; the county's residential-weighted median effective rate is 1.69 percent and the city's 1.91 percent, Illinois does not tax business personal property, and the composite rate for the parcel's taxing districts is a disclosed assumption.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau; Illinois Department of Transportation; Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability; MMCG estimates.

The local trade area supplies the diner's street trade, the gasoline and the labor pool. The diesel, the showers, the parking and most of the gaming play come from the corridor.

Diesel is modeled at 3,400,000 gallons at stabilization in Year 3, ramping from 2,448,000 gallons in Year 1 and 3,060,000 in Year 2 and growing 3 percent and 2 percent in Years 4 and 5, and gasoline at 1,200,000 gallons. Margin is modeled in cents per gallon. At TravelCenters of America, the last travel center chain to file public financials before bp acquired it in May 2023, fuel gross margin per gallon ran from 14 cents in the first quarter of 2021 to 27 cents in the second quarter of 2022, averaged about 25 cents for 2022 and about 17 cents for 2021, and fell to about 18 cents in the first quarter of 2023. MMCG carries diesel at 20 cents in Year 1, 21 cents in Year 2 and 22 cents from Year 3, and gasoline at 29, 30 and 31 cents. Pump prices are normalized at $4.25 for diesel and $3.25 for gasoline for the revenue and card fee lines; U.S. on-highway diesel stood at $6.382 on September 28, 2026 and the Midwest average at $6.526, against a 2025 annual average of $3.660, and because the margin is carried in cents the price level affects the revenue total, the card fees and the 15 percent test's denominator rather than the gross margin. Fleet card fees on diesel are carried at 1.0 percent of sales and consumer card fees on gasoline at 2.5 percent, indexed to the pump price. At Year 3 the fuel lines earn $1,120,000 of gross margin and pay $242,000 of card fees, a net of $878,000, which is 29 percent of the Project's total gross margin including the gaming; nonfuel is 61 percent and the gaming 10 percent.

Nonfuel sales are modeled at $3,900,000 at stabilization: $2,500,000 of convenience store sales at a 36 percent margin, $950,000 of diner sales at a 66 percent margin after food cost with the kitchen's labor in payroll, $200,000 of diesel exhaust fluid at a 33 percent margin, and $250,000 of showers, reserved parking, scale, ATM and lottery commission at a 90 percent margin, for $1,818,000 of nonfuel gross margin at a blended 46.6 percent. Store sales of $6,849 a day equal $17.25 per fueling customer across the 98 trucks and 299 cars that fuel on an average Year 3 day, with the balance from drivers parking without fueling, from the gaming room's visitors and from the diner's street trade. The industry's 2025 survey reports that the typical convenience store's inside basket lost money after expenses in 2025 and that foodservice earned 38.9 percent of inside gross profit, so the model carries the store at a 36 percent margin, carries the diner as the inside profit center it is in a 24-hour truck stop, and does not assume inside sales grow faster than fuel. Reserved parking is carried at 12 spaces at $18 a night and 50 percent paid occupancy, about $39,000 a year, inside the other income line. The establishment share of the gaming, $292,500 at stabilization, is carried on its own line and excluded from the coverage test the study recommends the lender write.

Location: I-57 and Watson interchange (Exit 151), Effingham County, IL 62473 Size in SF (Gross): 6,500

Source: Marshall & Swift CoreLogic, MMCG

The video gaming terminals are not in the budget because the terminal operator owns and places them under the Illinois split; the gaming room buildout of $120,000 carries the restricted-access partition, the surveillance and the attendant station. The truck court at $22,500 a space is a fraction of the $113,395 average per public space that state departments of transportation reported in 2025. The reserve of $711,000 is sized to the Year 1 shortfall of $332,960 and the Year 2 shortfall of $121,984 measured without the gaming revenue, which is the conservative basis, with about $175,000 of margin. The proposal is carried at $14,597,650: 14 acres at $685,000, a 7,500 SF building, an 85-space court at $1,850,000, a five-tank 130,000-gallon system, $1,350,000 of equipment and a $1,757,000 reserve sized to its own Year 1 and Year 2 shortfalls without gaming.

Loan Assumptions (resized)

The proposal would have carried a $10,948,238 loan and $987,005 of annual debt service against Year 3 cash flow available for debt service of $840,085 with the gaming and $547,585 without it.

The Project is an eligible commercial enterprise in a rural area under 7 CFR 5001.105 and 5001.3, and the borrower's gaming revenue is inside the 15 percent limit of 7 CFR 5001.127(b) on the establishment basis and on the gross terminal income basis, with the study treating the revenue as counted rather than excluded. The borrower is a new business whose guaranteed loan exceeds $1,000,000, so the independent feasibility study is required by 7 CFR 5001.306(a)(3)(i) and the lender's credit evaluation must contain a written evaluation of it under 7 CFR 5001.202. Equity of 25 percent of total project cost meets 7 CFR 5001.105(d) for a loan note guarantee requested before completion of construction. The loan is collateralized by the land, the improvements, the equipment and the inventory, and the personal guarantees of the principals are carried under 7 CFR 5001.204. The study presents projected balance sheets, income statements and cash flows through two years of stable operations with a stated assumption list and a pro forma balance sheet at closing under 7 CFR 5001.303, and it presents coverage with and without the gaming so that the lender's global analysis under 7 CFR 5001.315 can be written on either basis. The fiscal year 2026 guarantee of 80 percent, the 3 percent initial fee and the 0.55 percent retention fee are carried, and the loan is approved in the Illinois State Office within the $10,000,000 maximum authority.

Payroll of $800,000 at stabilization covers a general manager at $68,000, two assistant managers at $45,000 and 20 FTE at an average of $15.50 an hour against Illinois's $15.00 minimum wage, with an 18 percent burden, for an average of $34,783 per FTE across 23 positions over three shifts including the diner's kitchen and the gaming room attendant, escalating 3 percent a year. Year 3 operating expenses of $1,708,300 are 43.8 percent of nonfuel revenue, below the 49.8 percent the public chain reported for its site-level operating expenses in 2022 because the subject carries no truck service shop; the diner's labor is the reason the ratio is higher than the Clinton case's. Property tax is the third-largest fixed line, which is the Illinois difference: at about 2.1 percent of market value it is double the Oklahoma rate on the same improvements.

The Year 1 shortfall of $332,960 is funded from the reserve, as is the Year 2 shortfall of $121,984 measured without the gaming. With the gaming the Project covers from Year 2 at 1.16x, reaches 1.53x in Year 3 and builds to 1.73x by Year 5; without it the Project reaches 1.17x in Year 3 and 1.25x between Years 3 and 4, which is the basis MMCG recommends for the lender's covenant. Year 3 EBITDA of $1,280,200 is a 10.7 percent yield on total project cost. As proposed, the same demand at 3,000,000 diesel gallons and 85 spaces produces Year 3 EBITDA of $885,085 with the gaming and $592,585 without it, against debt service of $987,005 on a $10,948,238 loan, coverage of 0.85x and 0.55x, and a Year 5 coverage of 0.98x that never reaches 1.0x; the proposal needs the gaming to approach coverage and does not reach it with the gaming.

At Year 3 margins, the resized Project's fixed operating cost is $1,667,500 including the replacement reserve, and its contribution after card fees and cost of goods is 56.7 cents for every gallon of fuel sold with the nonfuel sales that gallon pulls into the store and the diner. Thresholds are stated as a share of the Year 3 forecast of 4,600,000 total gallons, with and without the establishment's gaming share.

The gaming is worth about 11 points of break-even volume. With it, the Project covers at 1.25x at 91 percent of forecast gallons; without it, 1.0x sits at 95 percent of forecast in Year 3 and 1.25x arrives in Year 4 as nonfuel sales grow against fixed costs. That is the shape of a sound video gaming truck stop credit: the fuel and the store cover the debt, and the terminals are the margin.

The resized Project holds coverage above 1.0x in every single-factor case and above 1.25x in all but the no-gaming case and the nonfuel shortfall. The combined case of no gaming and a 16 cent diesel margin falls to 0.92x, which is the downside a lender accepts: a margin below every full-year figure the public chain reported, together with a gaming license that does not issue. The two as-proposed rows are the determination.

The determination of not feasible as proposed and feasible as resized is subject to the following conditions precedent on the resized program:

The following items could not be verified from a primary source at the study date and are disclosed: the IDOT count and truck share at Exit 151 and at Exit 145, in place of which the study carries an interpolation between the verified I-57 count north of Effingham and the Mount Vernon corridor figure; the location-level net terminal income of the Effingham and Ina truck stops from the Illinois Gaming Board's reports, in place of which the study carries the statewide ten-terminal average with a 31 percent haircut; the asking price and the zoning of any parcel at the exit, in place of which the study carries a model parcel at $45,000 per acre; the Village of Watson's population; the fuel supply at the Watson and Edgewood interchanges; the truck parking counts of the Flying J, Pilot and Petro locations at Effingham and the Pilot at Mount Vernon from the operators' pages; the composite property tax rate for the parcel's taxing districts; Illinois EPA's current construction stormwater permit terms; the May 2025 Illinois nonmetropolitan wages for cashiers, cooks and fuel attendants; and the primary USDA text of any fiscal year 2027 fee notice, which had not been published at the study date.

This model study applies the methodology described on MMCG's USDA travel center feasibility study and truck stop feasibility study pages. MMCG prepares truck stop and travel center feasibility studies for USDA Business and Industry, SBA 7(a) and 504, and conventional lenders nationwide, with engagements from $4,900 and delivery in 9 to 16 business days.