Feasibility Study Consultant in Denver, CO: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Denver is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before it is read by anyone else, and it has to answer the questions that institution asks of a metro whose cost structure does not follow the national average. Metro Denver, the Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area, holds 3,052,498 residents on the Census Bureau's 2024 estimate across ten counties, led by Denver County at 729,019, Arapahoe County at 666,918, Jefferson County at 578,533 and Adams County at 542,973. Its core takes water from Denver Water, a public agency funded by water rates and new tap fees rather than taxes, so a new connection is a capital charge inside the loan request, and the City and County of Denver stacks two city sales and use rates on the state's and two regional districts' and levies a monthly Occupational Privilege Tax on employment. A template in which water is an operating line and every business tax scales with revenue misses both, and an underwriter will notice. MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study company serving Denver borrowers, SBA 7(a) lenders, 504 CDCs, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and conventional banks across Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Clear Creek, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin, Jefferson and Park counties. The Denver work covers ten of the asset classes the firm studies nationally, among them hotels and motels, car washes, self-storage, RV parks and campgrounds, assisted living and continuing care, gas stations and convenience stores, restaurants, fitness and recreational sports centers, marinas and child day care, and each report is written so the lender's credit committee, the CDC's underwriter and, where the address qualifies, the USDA state office can read the same document. The market side rests on primary and federal sources only: the utility's and the city's own publications, the federal rural statute, the Census Bureau and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which the Denver lending record on this page is computed by county membership rather than read from a district total. Fees start at $4,900. Standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days, a rush track is available at 5 business days, and every intake request receives a response within 12 business hours.

The Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO metro is home to about 3,052,498 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Denver County at 729,019; Arapahoe County at 666,918; Jefferson County at 578,533; Adams County at 542,973.

Water as a capital charge. Denver Water states that it serves 1.5 million people in the city of Denver and many surrounding suburbs, that it was established in 1918, and that it is a public agency funded by water rates and new tap fees, not taxes, and Colorado's oldest and largest water utility. The phrase that changes a feasibility model is new tap fees. Where a utility recovers the cost of growth through the general tax base, a new project's water cost is an operating line; where it recovers growth through tap fees, a meaningful part of that cost is a one-time capital charge that lands in the construction budget and therefore inside the loan request and the equity test. For a water-intensive project, and a car wash is the clearest case among the asset classes MMCG studies, that means part of the cost of water arrives as a one-time charge inside the loan request rather than as an operating line, and the study asks the utility for the charge at the address rather than inferring it.

A stacked sales tax with two city rates, and a head tax on payroll. The City and County of Denver publishes a city sales and use rate of 5.15 percent on general merchandise and 4.00 percent on prepared food and drink, levied alongside the State of Colorado at 2.90 percent, the Regional Transportation District at 1.00 percent and a special district at 0.10 percent, a combined general rate of 9.15 percent. Colorado projects outside this metro are scoped from the Colorado feasibility study page. The city also levies an Occupational Privilege Tax of $4.00 per month from the employer and $5.75 per month from the employee. Two lines of a pro forma move as a result. A restaurant or other prepared-food operator is taxed on its sales at a different city rate than a retailer in the same building, so the price point the demand model has to clear differs by concept. And the occupational privilege tax scales with staffing rather than with revenue, with a threshold: the city's guidance notes that owners and partners owe the employer portion even where earnings are below $500, which is the threshold the employee side turns on. A part-time or seasonal roster therefore does not carry the tax the way a full-time one does, so the line is built from the staffing plan, position by position, rather than from headcount alone.

An SBA 504 feasibility study in the Denver metro is written for two readers at once: the Certified Development Company that packages the debenture and the third-party lender that holds the first lien. Both underwrite under SBA SOP 50 10 8, and whether a study is required on a given file is their call under that SOP; when one is requested, MMCG writes it to that standard, with the demand analysis, the competitive supply review, the projected operating statement and the debt-service coverage test laid out so a CDC analyst and a bank credit officer can each trace every input to its source. A 7(a) study follows the same discipline for a single lender. The SBA closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion, comprising 77,600 7(a) loans for $37 billion and 6,750 504 loans for $7.8 billion, per SBA News Release 25-83 of September 30, 2025, and the Denver cut below is the metro's share of that activity.

The Denver metro record is computed from the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, labelled as of June 30, 2026, by summing the ten member counties of the Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area; it is never read from an SBA district total. In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 1,295 7(a) approvals for $668,400,600 and 74 504 approvals for $88,064,000. Against fiscal 2024, 7(a) approvals rose in both count and dollars, from 1,023 for $535,480,600, while 504 approvals rose in count from 70 but fell in dollars from $92,701,000. The most active 7(a) lenders in the metro in fiscal 2025 by approval count were The Huntington National Bank (197 loans for $69,454,300, the largest dollar total among the most active lenders), Northeast Bank (128), U.S. Bank, National Association (84), Newtek Bank, National Association (81), JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association (60), Live Oak Banking Company (58 loans for $69,234,000), Readycap Lending, LLC (47) and KeyBank National Association (41). On the 504 side the market is concentrated: B:Side Capital approved 43 loans for $44,218,000 and Mountain West Small Business Finance 24 loans for $33,526,000, followed at a distance by Preferred Lending Partners (4 loans, $6,651,000), Pikes Peak Regional Development Corporation (2 loans, $2,283,000) and California Statewide Certified Development Corporation (1 loan, $1,386,000). Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in this record in this count account for 1,383 7(a) loans for $1,180,359,600 with a 6.7 percent charge-off rate and 211 504 loans for $289,599,000 with a 1.1 percent charge-off rate, with restaurants (650 7(a) loans), fitness and recreational sports centers (228) and child day care (167) the deepest 7(a) cohorts. The method behind the computation and the full asset-class table sit in the Denver feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities credit runs on a statutory geography, not 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 of more than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town, and the USDA Rural Development eligibility map is the authoritative test for any address. What remains in this metro is the outer parts of the ten member counties, beyond the urbanized area that runs with Denver, Aurora and Centennial. Because the test turns on the subject address and the boundary around it rather than on the name of the town, MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake, before any work on the study begins, and no town is named on this page as eligible.

When the address qualifies, the study is written to the 7 CFR Part 5001 standard that USDA Rural Development and its guaranteed lenders apply. Denver Water serves the city of Denver and many surrounding suburbs, so a site outside its service area is priced on its own provider's published connection charge, and the city sales and use rates and the Occupational Privilege Tax are City and County of Denver levies, so a site in another jurisdiction is modelled on that jurisdiction's schedule.

A hotel feasibility study Denver lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Denver MSA drew 128 SBA 7(a) loans for $257,278,400 with a 3.6 percent charge-off rate, the second-largest 7(a) dollar total among the ten asset classes in this record in this count after restaurants, and 49 SBA 504 loans for $113,036,000, the largest 504 dollar total of any of the ten classes in the metro but a resolved cohort under 30 loans and therefore too small for a charge-off rate to be shown. In Denver Water's service area a hotel's connection is a new tap fee paid once into the construction budget, so the study obtains the charge from the utility at the address and prices it in project cost before the operating statement is built. A hotel with a restaurant or bar carries the 4.00 percent city rate on prepared food and drink and 5.15 percent on other sales in one revenue bridge, shown on separate lines. And the Occupational Privilege Tax of $4.00 per month from the employer and $5.75 per month from the employee is built from the housekeeping and food service staffing plan, full-time and part-time separately, rather than from headcount.

These are the points a Denver underwriter checks first, and each one traces to a utility's own statement, a city tax schedule, a federal statute or the SBA's own file rather than to a market report.

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 Denver Water's service area, against the City and County of Denver's boundary for the sales and use and Occupational Privilege Tax schedule, against the USDA Rural Development eligibility map under 7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(A), and against the county whose SBA record applies. MMCG then returns a scope and a quote within 12 business hours. Fees start 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 or a purchase contract deadline requires it.

The report is formatted for SBA, CDC, USDA and conventional submission in one document, with a sources list that lets an underwriter check every figure against the utility's statement, the city's tax schedule, the federal statute, the Census Bureau estimate or the SBA FOIA file it came from. The draft goes to the lender or CDC contact named at intake so that questions are answered before the credit memo is written, and the final report is prepared under USPAP discipline and written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files. Where a 7(a) lender and a CDC read the same 504 file, the one report serves both.

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 Denver and its ten-county metro 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 USPAP discipline, written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, and built on primary sources named in each report: utility and municipal publications, federal statute, Census Bureau records and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which every metro lending figure is computed in-house by county membership. Every figure on this page traces to one of those sources.