Lender-Grade SBA and USDA Feasibility Studies, Calibrated to Georgia

1. Why Feasibility Study Assumptions in Georgia Cannot Be Standardized

Georgia closed July 1, 2024 with a state population of approximately 11.1 million per the U.S. Census Bureau Vintage 2024 estimates, the eighth-most-populous state and one of the fastest-growing among states above 10 million. Year-over-year growth measured 1.0 percent against a national rate of 0.5 percent, with positive net domestic migration and continued international migration both contributing materially. The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA closed 2024 at approximately 6.48 million residents, anchoring nearly 60 percent of state population in a single metropolitan area, with the Atlanta-Athens Combined Statistical Area extending coverage to roughly 7.4 million across 39 counties in Georgia and one in Alabama. The Augusta MSA closed 2024 at approximately 620,000 residents (including the South Carolina cross-border counties), Savannah at 410,000, Columbus at 330,000 (including Alabama counties), Macon-Bibb at 234,000, Athens-Clarke at 221,000, Warner Robins at 196,000, Gainesville at 213,000, and the cluster of smaller MSAs (Albany, Hinesville, Valdosta, Brunswick, Dalton, Rome) accounting for roughly 1 million more. Georgia operates 159 counties, second only to Texas (254) nationally, and the state's geography spans the North Georgia mountains, the Atlanta-Athens-Macon Piedmont, the Coastal Empire, the Black Belt, the South Georgia coastal plain, and the Cumberland Plateau in the far northwest.

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Five forces define every 2026-vintage Georgia feasibility model and require state-specific calibration that no national template captures.

• First, the Hyundai Metaplant America (HMGMA) supplier cascade: Hyundai Motor Group's $7.6 billion electric vehicle assembly campus in Ellabell, Bryan County, held its grand opening March 26, 2025 with a 2,996-acre megasite, more than 16 million square feet of factory floor, a target of 8,500 direct jobs, and a 500,000-vehicle annual production capacity. The adjacent $4.3 billion HL-GA Battery Company joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution adds another full-scale plant. As of mid-2024, seventeen announced suppliers had committed approximately $2.5 billion in capital and roughly 6,900 additional jobs across twelve Georgia counties, with HMGMA hiring 81 percent of its workforce from within a 60-mile radius per HMGMA Communications.

• Second, the Port of Savannah: the Georgia Ports Authority moved 5.7 million TEUs in fiscal year 2025 (an 8.6 percent year-over-year gain), with Garden City Terminal still ranking as the largest single-terminal container facility in North America. GPA has completed $3.2 billion in port infrastructure over the past decade and announced an additional $4.5 billion ten-year plan including five big-ship berths, the Mason Mega Rail terminal, the Blue Ridge Connector inland port in Gainesville (opening 2026), and the Appalachian Regional Port and Northeast Georgia Inland Port already operating. Per Cushman & Wakefield's Q1 2026 U.S. Industrial MarketBeat, port-proximate Savannah industrial rents trade at approximately 55 percent above the broader U.S. average, a premium that propagates as far north as the I-85 northeast Atlanta corridor.

• Third, Atlanta as a top-two U.S. data center market: Atlanta closed 2025 with 1,459.2 megawatts operating, 2,076 megawatts under construction, vacancy of just 2 percent, and 2024 net absorption of 705.8 megawatts that for the first time eclipsed Northern Virginia per CBRE 2025 North American Data Center Trends. AWS announced an $11 billion Georgia expansion January 7, 2025, joining Microsoft, Google, Meta (in Newton County, served 100 percent renewably by Walton EMC), QTS, Digital Realty, and DC BLOX.

• Fourth, Hurricane Helene's September 2024 reset: the storm produced approximately $5.5 billion in Georgia agricultural and forestry losses (UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences) including roughly one-third of state pecan and cotton crops, more than 100 poultry houses, and 1.5 million acres of timber damage. The Georgia Insurance Commissioner's office tracked roughly 165,000 claims and over $2.5 billion in property damage.

• Fifth, the post-tort-reform legal climate: Senate Bill 68 (omnibus tort reform) and Senate Bill 69 (the Georgia Courts Access and Consumer Protection Act, regulating third-party litigation funding) were signed by Governor Brian Kemp on April 21, 2025. The reforms eliminate phantom damages, narrow negligent-security liability to ordinary care, allow bifurcation of liability and damages in cases over $150,000, prohibit anchoring tactics in non-economic damages closing arguments, and require litigation financiers to register and disclose. By the December 2025 American Tort Reform Foundation Judicial Hellholes Report, Georgia had fallen off the Hellholes list entirely after three consecutive years in the top four (Number One alone in 2022 to 2023; tied Number One with Pennsylvania in 2023 to 2024; Number Four in 2024 to 2025).

2. Georgia Capital Markets at a Glance

Georgia is the largest SBA market in the Southeast outside of Florida, and arguably the most competitive 7(a) and 504 lending environment in the South. The SBA Georgia District Office in Atlanta, led by District Director Terri Denison, services all 159 counties with a population base above 11 million. The dominant Certified Development Companies operating in Georgia include the Atlanta-active CDC Small Business Finance (a multi-state CDC), the City of Atlanta-affiliated Atlanta Local Development Corporation, the Brunswick-headquartered Coastal Area District Development Authority covering coastal Georgia, and the Savannah-headquartered Small Business Assistance Corporation, a U.S. Treasury-certified CDFI and SBA Community Advantage Lender operating across Southeast Georgia and the South Carolina Lowcountry. Georgia-headquartered or Georgia-active commercial banks driving senior debt for SBA 7(a) and SBA 504 deals include Truist Financial (Charlotte HQ, the largest deposit franchise in Georgia post-SunTrust merger), Synovus Financial (Columbus HQ), Ameris Bank (Atlanta HQ), United Community Banks (Greenville, SC HQ with a heavy Georgia presence), Pinnacle Bank, BankSouth, Heritage Southeast, and Colony Bank, alongside national franchise lenders Live Oak Banking Company, The Huntington National Bank, and Newtek Bank.

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USDA Rural Development maintains its Georgia State Office at the Stephens Federal Building in Athens, with State Director Joyce White and Deputy State Director Jared Hooper, and operates six area offices in Barnesville, Blackshear, Camilla, Sandersville, Statesboro, Tifton, and Douglas, plus the Athens state office. The Director for Georgia Business and Cooperatives Programs, Samuel Kirkland, administers Business and Industry, Rural Energy for America Program, Community Facilities, and Value-Added Producer Grant lending across the South Georgia ag belt, the North Georgia mountains, the Coastal Empire ex-Savannah, the Black Belt, and the Antebellum Trail. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs administers the Georgia Allocation System for private activity tax-exempt bonds (with $1.526 billion in 2026 allocation capacity at $135 per capita) and the State Small Business Credit Initiative.

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The single most analytically distinctive Georgia capital-markets variable that out-of-state lenders consistently underprice is the Downtown Development Authority bonds-for-title property tax abatement structure. Under the Downtown Development Authorities Law of 1981 (O.C.G.A. Section 36-42 et seq.), a Georgia DDA can issue a revenue bond, take fee-simple title to a project, and lease the project back to the developer for the negotiated abatement period. Because DDA-owned property is statutorily tax-exempt, the leasehold interest rather than the fee interest is taxed, generating ad valorem savings that flow directly into debt service coverage. Practitioner consensus (per Dan McRae of Seyfarth Shaw and the Carl Vinson Institute) holds that approximately 90 percent of Georgia bonds-for-title transactions are "phantom bond" or self-purchased structures used purely for the abatement vehicle rather than for third-party financing. Georgia operates 159 different ways of doing property tax abatement at the county level, but the bonds-for-title constant runs through nearly all of them. A national lender that fails to model the PILOT schedule in its underwriting can understate DSCR by 40 to 150 basis points on most mid-sized industrial and multifamily deals, and that miscalibration is what we see most often in templated, out-of-Georgia feasibility work. That is what our work corrects.

3. Atlanta Metro and the Northern Crescent: Data Centers, Industrial, Multifamily, Office, and Hospitality

Atlanta is the most analytically dense U.S. metro after Dallas-Fort Worth, with five distinct CRE narratives running in parallel: a power-throttled data center supercycle, an industrial market still absorbing pandemic-era deliveries, a multifamily pipeline at decade-low starts, an office market under structural pressure with active conversion activity, and a hospitality market levered to Hartsfield-Jackson and the Georgia World Congress Center.

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Atlanta's data center cluster is the defining Georgia institutional CRE story. CBRE's 2025 North American Data Center Trends reports 1,459.2 megawatts operating at year-end 2025 (up 458.8 megawatts year-over-year), 2,076 megawatts under construction, vacancy of just 2 percent, and 2024 net absorption of 705.8 megawatts that for the first time eclipsed Northern Virginia. Concentration runs through Douglas County, Coweta County, Henry County (with a 500-megawatt pipeline alone), Newton County, and Fulton County, with land prices in power-rich corridors exceeding $1 million per acre. AWS announced an $11 billion expansion in Butts and Douglas counties on January 7, 2025, creating at least 550 jobs. Microsoft, Google, Meta (in Newton County, served 100 percent renewably by Walton EMC), QTS, Digital Realty, DC BLOX, and Switch round out the operator base. Hyperscale users have pre-leased over 300 megawatts in 2025 with another 600 megawatts of pre-leasing expected. The defining underwriting variable, however, is power. The Georgia Public Service Commission approved Georgia Power's 2025 Integrated Resource Plan on July 15, 2025; the Commission ordered a freeze of Georgia Power base rates through 2028 on July 31, 2025; and on December 19, 2025 the Commission unanimously approved a stipulated agreement allowing Georgia Power to add 9,885 megawatts of new generation (a 6,000-megawatt minimum, 8,500-megawatt maximum based on proven need), most of it earmarked for large-load customers. Georgia Power has secured over 8 gigawatts of new generation capacity scheduled to come online after 2030, with utility lead times for new substations approaching four years in the most constrained corridors. The PSC's January 2025 large-load tariff rule plus its requirements that data center developers demonstrate end-user commitments, zoning confirmation, and posted collateral for power procurement, make speculative data center site control in Georgia substantially harder to underwrite than in lower-friction power markets like Phoenix or Reno.

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Atlanta industrial inventory exceeds 800 million square feet, with approximately 18.9 million square feet under construction at year-end 2025 per CoStar via Matthews. CBRE Q4 2025 reported net absorption of 5.7 million square feet (the strongest quarter since 2022, driven by three transactions exceeding one million square feet each), direct vacancy declining to 8.0 percent from 9.0 percent in Q3, and average asking NNN rent climbing to $7.54 per square foot, up 3.4 percent quarter-over-quarter. Annual sales volume of $1.4 billion in Q4 2025 ran roughly 70 percent above the pre-pandemic 2015 to 2019 average. Submarket geography is anchored by I-85 NE (the Gwinnett-Hall corridor), I-75 SE (Henry-Stockbridge-Locust Grove-Griffin), I-20 W (Douglas County), and the Airport / South Atlanta cluster. Build-to-suit projects now dominate the largest deliveries under construction (data centers and large manufacturing), with new starts down approximately 40 percent year-over-year. Major occupiers include Amazon, FedEx, UPS, The Home Depot (Cobb County HQ), and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics (Cobb County, F-22 and F-35 production). Industrial flexfeasibility analysis along the I-285 perimeter and the I-75/I-85 outbound corridors must specifically model HMGMA-driven supplier demand spillover from Savannah back through Macon and into the metro.

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The Atlanta multifamily story is one of supply absorption converging with thinning starts. Q4 2025 inventory carried roughly 17,100 units under construction (approximately 3.1 percent of the base), down from 25,200 deliveries in 2024 and a peak pipeline above 35,000 units in mid-2023. Vacancy ranged 6.3 percent to 11.1 percent (Lee & Associates, broader inclusive definition), with average asking rent at $1,631 to $1,646 per unit and year-over-year rent change between negative 1.3 percent and positive 1.6 percent depending on stabilization definitions. Atlanta closed 2025 with approximately $6.7 billion in multifamily sales volume at average pricing near $192,000 per unit, and Blackstone led 2025 buyer activity at $581.3 million. The 4 percent and 9 percent LIHTC pipeline run through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Georgia Housing Search and the Georgia Housing Tax Credit, with Opportunity Zone overlay financing common in select Atlanta South submarkets and along the BeltLine.

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Atlanta office is the structural challenge. Partners Real Estate Q4 2025 reports metro vacancy of 26.8 percent against an all-time-high overall asking rent of $32.73 per square foot (up 4.4 percent year-over-year). CBD vacancy is 30.6 percent, suburban 24.3 percent. Buckhead recorded 308,843 square feet of net absorption in 2025 (the metro's strongest by submarket), with rents crossing $40 per square foot for the first time at $40.46. Midtown rents reached $42.91. Only 332,000 square feet was under construction at year-end 2025. The conversion pipeline has accelerated: per RentCafe and Yardi Matrix February 2025 Adaptive Reuse data, Atlanta is now the sixth-largest U.S. office-to-residential conversion market with 2,239 units in the pipeline, behind New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas. Major Atlanta conversion projects include the 51-story Georgia-Pacific Center and 2 Peachtree.

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Hospitality is anchored by Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the world's busiest passenger airport for most of the past two decades, which served 108.1 million passengers in 2024 (the second-highest annual volume in airport history behind 110 million in 2019), with cargo up 6 percent to 354,974 metric tons. The airport targets 125 million annual passengers within five years and has a multi-billion-dollar capital pipeline including the ATL Skytrain expansion and the Concourse D widening. The Georgia World Congress Center anchors Atlanta's convention market with the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena, and the rebuilt Underground Atlanta supporting citywide events. The Atlanta soundstage and film cluster ranks third nationally after California and New York with more than 4.1 million square feet of soundstage space (Trilith in Fayetteville at 700 acres and 1.5 million square feet of production space, Tyler Perry Studios at 330 acres, Pinewood, Shadowbox, and Assembly Atlanta), Georgia certified $1.24 billion in transferable film tax credits in 2024 and approximately $887 million in 2025, and the legislative environment around credit caps continues to influence soundstage occupancy and crew-housing demand.

4. Other Asset Classes MMCG Covers Across Georgia

Beyond Atlanta and Savannah, the full Georgia asset class spectrum runs through Augusta, Columbus, Macon-Bibb, Athens-Clarke, Albany, Gainesville, Warner Robins, Dalton, Brunswick, and dozens of South Georgia and North Georgia mountain submarkets. The HMGMA cascade, the Atlanta data center load wave, the rural USDA-eligible footprint covering most of the state outside the major MSAs, the Hurricane Helene insurance reset, and the SB 68 / SB 69 commercial liability re-rating support deal flow in each of the categories below.

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Self-Storage and RV & Boat Storage. Concentrated demand across Atlanta exurbs (Cherokee, Forsyth, Paulding, Henry, Coweta, Newton, Walton), the Savannah commuter shed (Pooler, Richmond Hill, Effingham), the I-985 / Lake Lanier corridor in Hall County, and the North Georgia mountain second-home corridor. Helene-affected South Georgia self-storage feasibility must explicitly model wind/hail deductible escalation and the post-storm contents-coverage gap.

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RV Parks, Glamping, and Cabins. Concentrated demand in the North Georgia mountains (Blue Ridge, Helen, Dahlonega, Ellijay, Clayton, Hiawassee, Sky Valley), the Lake Lanier and Lake Hartwell corridors, the Chattahoochee National Forest / Cohutta Wilderness frontage, the Okefenokee Swamp gateway (Folkston, Waycross), the Antebellum Trail and Lake Oconee corridor, and the Coastal Empire (Tybee Island, St. Simons, Jekyll Island, Cumberland Island gateway). North Georgia STR and glamping feasibility must model county-level short-term rental ordinance variability.

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Healthcare, Assisted Living, and Medical Office. Major systems include Piedmont Healthcare (Atlanta-headquartered, the largest non-profit healthcare system in Georgia with more than 25 hospitals), Emory Healthcare (Atlanta, anchoring the Emory University academic medical center cluster), Northside Hospital (Atlanta), Wellstar Health System (Marietta-headquartered with major North Georgia presence), Phoebe Putney Health System (Albany), Augusta University Health, and Memorial Health (Savannah, HCA-affiliated). Georgia's 65-plus population is projected to grow at roughly 22 percent over the 2025 to 2035 decade per the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, supporting institutional-quality assisted living and memory-care feasibility, with USDA Community Facilities financing available for non-profit operators across rural-eligible counties.

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Retail, Office, and Mixed-Use. Office is the structural challenge across the Atlanta metros, with 26.8 percent metro vacancy at year-end 2025 and active office-to-residential conversion across CBD and Midtown. Well-located grocery-anchored retail and last-mile industrial flex along I-75, I-85, I-20, I-285, and I-575 continue to clear at meaningful cap rate compression versus office. Publix (Florida-headquartered but dominant in Georgia), Kroger, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sprouts Farmers Market, and the Atlanta-headquartered The Fresh Market anchor the Georgia grocery-anchored retail set.

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Gas Stations, C-Stores, Truck Stops, and QSR. Georgia operates one of the most extensive truck-stop and travel-center networks in the U.S. South, with Loves Travel Stops, Pilot, TA, Buc-ee's (which opened multiple Georgia locations including Calhoun and Warner Robins), QuikTrip, RaceTrac (Atlanta-headquartered), Chevron, and the regional Parker's Kitchen anchoring the cluster. The I-75 corridor (Macon to Tifton to Valdosta), the I-95 corridor (Brunswick to Savannah), the I-20 corridor (Atlanta to Augusta), the I-85 corridor (Atlanta to Greenville), and the I-16 corridor (Macon to Savannah, now reshaped by HMGMA logistics) all command premium feasibility valuations. Georgia fueling station, car wash, and quick-service restaurant feasibility must incorporate AADT, county-level commuter flows, the Helene-affected South Georgia rural traffic mix, and the Atlanta exurban household formation that continues to outpace national rates.

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Wedding Venues, Marinas, and Childcare. Georgia plantation-style and Antebellum-Trail wedding venues across Madison, Eatonton, Milledgeville, Watkinsville, Roswell, and the North Georgia mountains anchor a distinct premium hospitality segment. Lake Lanier, Lake Hartwell, Lake Allatoona, Lake Sinclair, Lake Oconee, and the Coastal Empire marinas anchor the Georgia marina pipeline, most operating under U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or Georgia Power lakefront concession structures. Childcare desert classifications across most rural Georgia counties support USDA Community Facilities financing for non-profit and faith-based childcare feasibility.

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Renewable Energy, Agribusiness, and Manufacturing-Adjacent Service Businesses. Georgia is the largest U.S. peanut producer, the largest U.S. pecan producer, the largest U.S. blueberry producer (and the second-largest in some years), one of the top three sweet onion producers (Vidalia), a major poultry processor (Georgia is the largest U.S. broiler-producing state), a leading cotton producer, and a major timber state (24 million acres of working forestland). Anovion Technologies in Bainbridge ($800 million synthetic graphite for EV batteries), Aspen Aerogels in Statesboro ($1.1 billion announced), Hanwha Qcells in Cartersville ($2.5 billion solar panel manufacturing, the largest North American solar manufacturing facility), and SK Battery America in Commerce ($2.6 billion EV battery cell plant) round out the IRA-era industrial cluster. Plant Vogtle in Burke County (the only U.S. nuclear plant with four reactors, total 4,536 megawatts; Units 3 and 4 entered commercial operation July 31, 2023 and April 29, 2024) anchors Georgia base-load economics. The Georgia craft brewing and distilling cluster (more than 130 active breweries plus the Atlanta-headquartered American Distilling Institute member roster) supports a meaningful winery and brewery feasibility pipeline.

5. Six Underwriting Realities Every Georgia Project Faces

Six state-specific underwriting realities differentiate a defensible Georgia feasibility study from a templated, out-of-state report. Each is non-optional in 2026.

• First, the EMC versus Georgia Power service territory map. Georgia Power (a Southern Company subsidiary) serves approximately 2.7 million customers across 155 of 159 counties and operates the dominant transmission backbone, but the 41 Electric Membership Corporations serve approximately 5 million Georgia residents across 73 percent of the state's land area on 200,400 miles of distribution lines (Georgia Electric Membership Corp.). The EMCs jointly own generation share of Plant Vogtle through Oglethorpe Power (30 percent) and the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (22.7 percent), with Dalton Utilities at 1.6 percent and Georgia Power retaining 45.7 percent. Walton EMC supplies Meta's Newton County data center on a 100 percent renewable basis; Jackson EMC serves the I-85 NE corridor (Gwinnett through Banks counties) and now competes for hyperscale loads; Cobb EMC serves the Northwest. The PSC's December 19, 2025 approval of 9,885 megawatts of new Georgia Power generation, combined with Georgia Power's stricter rules requiring developers to demonstrate end-user commitments, zoning confirmation, and posted collateral before power procurement, means any large-load deal (5 megawatts and above) requires an early service-territory analysis: the same site can carry a 4-year power lead time under Georgia Power but a materially shorter timeline under an EMC. MMCG conducts a service-territory and will-serve analysis at intake on every Georgia data center, cold storage, indoor agriculture, EV-related manufacturing, and high-load industrial engagement.

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• Second, Hurricane Helene's insurance reset and South Georgia commercial premium escalation. Per the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Warnell School of Forestry damage assessment, Hurricane Helene drove approximately $5.5 billion in Georgia agricultural and forestry losses in September 2024, including $1.28 billion in timber damage across 8.93 million acres, roughly one-third of state pecan and cotton crops, more than 100 poultry houses, and 1.5 million acres of timber. The Georgia Insurance Commissioner's office reported approximately 165,000 paid claims and over $2.5 billion in property damage. Per Insurify's 2026 Insuring the American Homeowner Report, the average Georgia homeowners premium rose to $3,092 in 2025 (up 9 percent) and is projected to reach $3,370 by year-end 2026 (up 10 percent), the fourth-largest projected state increase nationally. Wind and hail deductibles in South Georgia commercial and agricultural CRE have moved to 2 to 5 percent of insured value, and named-storm sublimits are now standard. MMCG models property insurance at 50 to 100 percent above 2022-baseline run rates for properties south of I-16 and increasingly along the entire Helene swath up to I-20, stress-tests DSCR against a 25 percent insurance shock, and benchmarks named-storm deductible exposure against the borrower's liquidity reserve.

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• Third, the SB 68 and SB 69 tort reform lag. Senate Bill 68 (omnibus tort reform) and Senate Bill 69 (regulating third-party litigation funding), signed by Governor Kemp on April 21, 2025, eliminate phantom damages by allowing defendants to introduce evidence of amounts actually paid by insurers rather than billed amounts, narrow negligent-security liability to ordinary care, allow bifurcation of liability and damages in cases over $150,000, prohibit anchoring tactics in non-economic damages closing arguments, and require litigation financiers to register with the state and disclose funding agreements above $25,000. The Georgia Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire's November 2024 report had documented a 25 percent increase in claims volume driving commercial premium increases. Commercial general liability, commercial auto, and habitational/multifamily premium re-rating, however, typically lags statutory reform by 18 to 30 months. MMCG underwrites 2026 closings at the post-2023 spike run rate (Georgia commercial GL premiums for habitational and hospitality up 20 to 40 percent from 2022 baselines per industry reporting) and treats any post-reform reduction as upside, not base case.

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• Fourth, the Hyundai Metaplant supplier cascade and Coastal Empire workforce housing curve. Pooler, Richmond Hill, Guyton, Rincon, and the broader Effingham-Bryan-Bulloch corridor multifamily, build-to-rent, self-storage, and SFR-rental absorption now move with HMGMA hiring milestones rather than traditional Savannah MSA fundamentals. Feasibility studies must phase rent and occupancy ramps to actual production milestones (October 2024 SOP IONIQ 5; March 2025 grand opening; 2026 to 2027 ramp toward 500,000-unit annual capacity), not Census Bureau MSA growth lines. The September 2025 federal immigration enforcement event detaining approximately 450 mostly South Korean workers at the HL-GA Battery construction site is a downside scenario every Coastal Empire underwriting model should stress-test for supplier construction labor availability and resulting absorption delay.

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• Fifth, the Georgia bonds-for-title Downtown Development Authority abatement structure. Practitioner consensus per Dan McRae (Seyfarth Shaw / Carl Vinson Institute) holds that approximately 90 percent of Georgia bonds-for-title transactions are "phantom bond" or self-purchased structures used purely for the property tax abatement vehicle. The PILOT schedule typically depreciates the leasehold interest 50 percent in year one, ramping back to fee-simple parity over 10 to 20 years depending on county and project category. National lenders that fail to model the PILOT schedule routinely understate DSCR by 40 to 150 basis points on mid-sized industrial and multifamily deals. MMCG models the bonds-for-title PILOT schedule at intake on every Georgia development authority project and flags any deal where the abatement timeline is unconfirmed.

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• Sixth, Plant Vogtle base-load economics and the Georgia Power rate path. Vogtle 3 entered commercial operation July 31, 2023; Vogtle 4 followed April 29, 2024. Combined Vogtle expansion cost reached approximately $34 to 36.8 billion (more than double the original $14 billion estimate). Vogtle 3 added approximately $5.42 per month to the average Georgia Power residential bill; Vogtle 4 added approximately $8.95 per month per Georgia Power's filings. The PSC's July 31, 2025 base-rate freeze through 2028 caps near-term residential rate movement, but commercial and industrial customers above 5 megawatts now negotiate large-load tariffs separately. For bankable industrial, manufacturing, and data center feasibility, base-load reliability is genuinely strong (Vogtle is the largest generator of clean energy in the U.S. at over 30 million megawatt-hours per year), but commercial rate trajectory beyond 2028 carries upside risk given the $52 billion grid expansion through 2030 announced by Georgia Power. MMCG stress-tests commercial power costs against a 15 to 25 percent post-2028 escalation scenario for any project with sustained loads above 1 megawatt.