Feasibility Study Consultant in Atlantic City, NJ: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Atlantic City is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else. In fiscal year 2025 this metro recorded 102 SBA 7(a) approvals for $63,767,400. One rule a lender meets here: Atlantic City Luxury Tax adds to the state sales tax on rooms and entertainment.

The Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ metro is home to about 372,989 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Atlantic County at 279,114; Cape May County at 93,875.

A national template prices this metro on its 372,989 residents and stops there. The rules below come from the New Jersey Division of Taxation, and each one changes a line of the model before a lender reads it.

Atlantic City Luxury Tax adds to the state sales tax on rooms and entertainment. The New Jersey Division of Taxation states that the Atlantic City Luxury Tax applies to receipts from specified retail sales within Atlantic City. The listed sales include room rental in hotels, inns, rooming, or boarding houses and cover, minimum, or entertainment charges. The page gives the luxury tax rate as 9% on sales other than alcoholic beverages sold by the drink, and the Sales and Use Tax rate is charged at the reduced amount of 3.625%. Atlantic City businesses collect a combined tax rate of 12.625% on the specified retail sales. For a hotel or entertainment project inside Atlantic City, the revenue model should treat 12.625% of those receipts as tax collected from guests and patrons, and should not use the standard state sales tax rate alone. The page ties the tax to sales within Atlantic City, so a site elsewhere in the metro needs its own tax check.

Alcohol sold by the drink in Atlantic City is taxed at a separate combined rate. The New Jersey Division of Taxation page on the Atlantic City Luxury Tax gives a separate rate for alcohol served in Atlantic City. It states that alcoholic beverages that are sold by the drink in Atlantic City are taxable at the combined rate of 9.625%, described as 3% Atlantic City Luxury Tax and 6.625% New Jersey Sales and Use Tax. The same page gives a combined rate of 12.625% on the other specified retail sales. For a bar, restaurant or entertainment project inside Atlantic City, a model should therefore split receipts by type: drinks sold by the drink are taxed at 9.625%, and other specified sales are taxed at 12.625%. The list of specified sales names no food, so food receipts need their own check against the state sales tax. The page applies this to Atlantic City, so a site elsewhere in the metro needs its own tax check.

Nationally, the U.S. Small Business Administration closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion. This page computes the Atlantic City share from the SBA's own 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, as of June 30, 2026, by member county rather than by district office: in fiscal year 2025 the metro's two counties recorded 102 SBA 7(a) approvals for $63,767,400 and 4 SBA 504 approvals for $3,921,000.

In fiscal year 2025 the 7(a) approvals here came from TD Bank, National Association (41 loans, $21,662,000), Northeast Bank (8 loans, $1,725,000), Readycap Lending, LLC (6 loans, $5,582,500), and Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company (6 loans, $815,000), listed by approval count with the names as the SBA released them. The 504 approvals that year went through Empire State Certified Development Corporation (3 loans) and Trenton Business Assistance Corporation (1 loan). The SBA's district office field reads New Jersey District Office on 101 of the 102 fiscal year 2025 7(a) rows, 99.0%, and Philadelphia District Office on 1.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes tracked here account for 232 7(a) loans for $216,544,900 and 28 504 loans for $31,255,000 in this metro. In fiscal year 2025 alone those classes took 23 7(a) and 504 approvals for $22,679,500. The table sets out each class; a cell under five loans is not shown, and a charge-off rate is printed where 30 or more loans have resolved and left blank below that.

USDA Business and Industry and USDA Community Facilities credit runs on a statutory geography rather than on a county line. Under 7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(A) the terms rural and rural area mean any area other than a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town. The test turns on the subject address and the urbanized-area boundary around it, not on the name of a county or a metro. For a project in Atlantic City the address decides it. The metro spans two counties, from Atlantic County at 279,114 residents to Cape May County at 93,875, and an urbanized-area boundary follows the census map rather than any county line. MMCG checks the subject address against the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake, before work on the study begins, and this page names no town as eligible.

A hotel feasibility study in Atlantic City starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels account for 75 7(a) loans for $111,721,500 and 14 504 loans for $17,289,000 here, $129,010,500 in all. Full and limited service restaurants come to $97,261,400 over the same years. On the hotels and motels 7(a) loans that have resolved, the charge-off rate is 7.5%.

For a hotel in this metro the publisher rules above are model lines rather than background: Atlantic City Luxury Tax adds to the state sales tax on rooms and entertainment (the New Jersey Division of Taxation).

These are the points an underwriter in Atlantic City reads before the rest of the file. Each traces to a government publisher or to the SBA's own file.

MMCG starts from the project address, the asset class and the lender or Certified Development Company contact. The address settles the county and the rules set out above; the asset class sets which part of the SBA record applies.

The report names its sources the way this page does: the New Jersey Division of Taxation, the SBA FOIA release, and the Census Bureau's population estimates. The method is set out in full in MMCG's feasibility study methodology.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study consultancy that specializes in SBA and USDA feasibility studies for lenders, Certified Development Companies, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and the borrowers they serve, with Atlantic City among the markets it covers. The practice is led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Reports are prepared under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1 for 7(a) and 504 files and under 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, and each one states which schedule, rate and boundary it relied on so a credit officer can check the work. Pricing starts at $4,900, standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days, a rush track delivers in 5 business days, and every inquiry receives a response within 12 business hours.