Feasibility Study Consultant in Atlanta, GA: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Atlanta has to answer questions a national template never asks: whether any part of the project's revenue or capital stack rests on Georgia's transferable film and entertainment tax credit, whether water supply is a gating condition for a site in a metro that sits on granite and draws its surface water from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee under releases the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls, which employment and in-migration base the demand projection actually depends on, and whether the address falls inside the SBA and USDA program geographies as the regulations draw them. MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study company that prepares lender-grade SBA and USDA feasibility studies calibrated to the Atlanta region, covering Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, Clayton, Cherokee, Forsyth, Henry, Fayette, Douglas and Paulding counties and the outer counties of the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metropolitan area. Each report is written for the reader who has to approve the file: the SBA 7(a) lender, the 504 Certified Development Company, the USDA Business and Industry underwriter or the conventional credit committee. Pricing starts at $4,900, delivery runs 9 to 16 business days, every inquiry receives a response within 12 business hours, and a complimentary preliminary Atlanta market overview is provided within one business day.

The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA metro is home to about 6,411,149 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Fulton County at 1,090,354; Gwinnett County at 1,003,869; Cobb County at 787,538; DeKalb County at 770,307.

A national feasibility template assumes a private-sector demand base on a generic growth curve, a water supply that is an assumption rather than a constraint, and no state tax instrument large enough to capitalize an asset class on its own. Atlanta differs on each: a transferable state film and entertainment tax credit with no national equivalent can capitalize production-support real estate, its water comes from surface sources the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulates in a basin three states have long contested, and Georgia levies a flat state income tax the state markets in its posture to employers. Each of the three structural variables below is stated at the level a primary source supports.

The first variable is the Georgia film and entertainment tax credit, a transferable state income tax credit with no national equivalent: per the Georgia Department of Economic Development, a production company spending at least $500,000 in a tax year earns a 20 percent base credit on qualified Georgia spend, plus a 10 percent uplift for an approved embedded Georgia promotion, and the credit may be sold or transferred to Georgia taxpayers. Because it is transferable, the credit capitalizes soundstage, studio and production-support real estate directly, so an Atlanta study for those assets models it rather than treating it as background.

The second variable is surface-water dependence and the tri-state water constraint. Metro Atlanta sits on granite, so it has almost no usable groundwater and depends on surface water from the Chattahoochee River and Lake Lanier. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates Lake Lanier and controls river releases, and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint basin has been contested for decades among Georgia, Alabama and Florida. For a water-intensive project such as a data center, a food or beverage plant or a large hospitality asset, an Atlanta feasibility study treats water supply as a gating condition rather than an assumption.

The third variable is Georgia's flat state income tax. Georgia levies a single statewide individual income tax rate, part of a low-tax posture the Georgia Department of Economic Development markets to employers; it matters less to the operating pro forma than the film credit or the water constraint, but a study names the employment base its demand rests on rather than assuming a generic Sun Belt growth curve.

MMCG prepares SBA 504 and SBA 7(a) feasibility studies for Atlanta projects under SBA SOP 50 10 8, the SBA standard operating procedure for lenders and Certified Development Companies. The study is written for the credit memo, not for a marketing deck: it establishes the market need, tests the project's revenue assumptions against the region's actual demand base, and sets out a financial analysis the lender can carry into its own model. Beyond that framework, every Atlanta SBA study states the region-specific facts the file turns on. Where any part of the project's revenue or capital stack depends on the transferable film and entertainment tax credit under O.C.G.A. Section 48-7-40.26, the study models the credit on the page rather than treating it as background. Wherever the use is water-intensive, the study names the serving water utility at the address and treats supply as a gating condition, because the metro depends on surface water from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee whose releases the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls. The demand analysis names the employment base the projection rests on rather than a generic Sun Belt growth curve, so a credit committee can see what the absorption assumption depends on.

The Atlanta SBA market is active enough that the record matters. National SBA volume in fiscal 2025 reached 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion, per SBA News Release 25-83 of September 30, 2025. Within the Atlanta metro, the fiscal 2025 record computed from the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA loan file is 1,775 7(a) approvals for $1,062,404,900 and 122 504 approvals for $191,606,000. The most active 504 Certified Development Company in the metro that year was Florida Business Development Corporation, with 43 loans for $66,599,000, followed by Capital Partners Certified Development Company with 32 loans and Small Business Access Partners, Inc. with 20. The most active 7(a) lenders by approval count were Northeast Bank with 245 loans, Newtek Bank, National Association with 179, The Huntington National Bank with 154, Readycap Lending, LLC with 94, Lendistry SBLC, LLC with 62 and Live Oak Banking Company with 61. Those metro figures are computed by county membership across the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area, never taken from a district total, because the Georgia District Office that files these loans, named on 1,771 of the metro's 1,775 fiscal 2025 7(a) rows, covers more than the metro, and a district total would fold in lending outside the metro. Each of those institutions reads a study with its own credit questions in mind; the method behind the FOIA computation and the fuller lending record are set out in the Atlanta feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loans run under 7 CFR Part 5001, and the first question in any USDA feasibility study Atlanta borrowers commission is geography. Under the regulation a rural area is one that is not in a city or town of more than 50,000 population and not in its contiguous urbanized area. On that definition the Atlanta urban core is ineligible, and the ineligibility extends across the urbanized area contiguous to it. The program's geography in this region is the metro's outer ring, beyond the Atlanta urbanized area, where smaller communities can sit below the population threshold. Because eligibility turns on the parcel and the urbanized-area boundary rather than the city name, MMCG verifies the subject address on the USDA eligibility map at intake, before any work on the study begins.

Once eligibility is confirmed, the USDA study is built on the same regional layers as the SBA work, and those layers do more work in a rural file, not less. Wherever the use is water-intensive, the serving water utility is named and its supply is treated as a gating condition, given the metro's dependence on surface water from Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee. A production-support project on the region's edge is tested on whether its revenue depends on the film credit, and where it does the credit is modeled rather than assumed. The demand base is named the same way, with the employment base stated on the page rather than folded into a growth curve. The eligibility finding is stated at the front of the report with the map reference it rests on, so the participating lender does not have to re-derive it. The report is formatted for the USDA Business and Industry underwriter and for the participating lender, and it is aligned with 7 CFR Part 5001 throughout.

A hotel feasibility study Atlanta lenders will rely on goes beyond the standard market and financial sections to state the metro's own record and constraints. The study is prepared under SBA SOP 50 10 8 for a 7(a) or 504 file and under 7 CFR Part 5001 for a USDA file, and the metro's own program record is stated on the page. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026, on disbursed loans, the Atlanta metro recorded 432 SBA 7(a) loans to hotels and motels for $1,011,785,000 with a 1.4% charge-off rate, and 97 504 loans for $208,133,000 with a 9.1% charge-off rate, computed from the SBA FOIA file by county membership. A CDC reading a hotel file knows that record, so the study answers the questions it raises. It names the serving water utility at the address and treats supply as a gating condition, because a large hospitality asset is a water-intensive use in a metro that sits on granite and depends on surface water the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulates. The demand analysis names its generators rather than importing a Sun Belt curve, stating the base the revenue projection rests on.

These are the region-specific facts an Atlanta feasibility study has to get right before a lender, a CDC or a USDA underwriter will rely on it. Each one traces to a primary source named in the companion research post, and each is carried on the page rather than in a footnote.

An engagement begins with three things: the project address, the asset class and the name of the lender or CDC contact who will read the report. At intake the address is checked against the USDA rural eligibility definition under 7 CFR Part 5001, the serving water utility is identified, and any dependence of the project's revenue or capital stack on the film and entertainment tax credit is flagged so it can be modeled rather than assumed. A complimentary preliminary Atlanta market overview is returned within one business day, before the full study is commissioned, so the sponsor and the lender can see the demand base and the program fit before committing to the fee. Pricing starts at $4,900. Standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days from engagement, and a rush track at 5 business days is available when a loan committee date is already set. Every inquiry is answered within 12 business hours.

The finished report is formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional file submission, so the same document can move from a 7(a) lender to a 504 Certified Development Company to a USDA Business and Industry underwriter without being rewritten. It is prepared under USPAP discipline, aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8 and 7 CFR Part 5001, and it states on its face which of the region's layers apply to the subject and what each one assumes. MMCG writes for the underwriter rather than for the sponsor. The firm does not advocate for the project; it tests the project, states every assumption on the page, and gives the lender a document that survives the lender's own credit questions.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility consulting firm specializing in SBA and USDA feasibility studies. Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Studies are prepared under USPAP discipline and aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and with 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry files. In the Atlanta region the firm serves the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA metropolitan area, a metro of 6,411,149 residents on the Census Bureau's 2024 population estimates, from Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett and Cobb counties to the outer ring. Every Atlanta study is written against the three structural variables set out on this page rather than against a national template, and every figure in it traces to a primary source a lender can check.