Feasibility Study Consultant in Jacksonville, FL: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Jacksonville is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else, and the first structural fact about this market is that one of its five counties has no separate county government at all. **Duval is consolidated with the City of Jacksonville.** The Florida Legislature's own analyst records that the consolidated unit carries a twenty mill cap, rather than the ten county and ten municipal caps that apply elsewhere, because the unit levies as both. The same analyst records that a county consolidated with one or more municipalities, currently only Duval, may levy the Consolidated County Convention Development Tax, a 2 percent transient rental tax forecast at $12.1 million for 2025-26. A template that treats Duval as an ordinary Florida county has the millage frame wrong before it starts. **The sales surtax changes at every county line and follows delivery.** Florida's Department of Revenue puts Duval and Clay at 1.5 percent, Baker and Nassau at 1 percent and St. Johns at one half of one percent for calendar year 2026: three different rates across five counties. The surtax is collected at the rate of the county where delivery is made, and a $5,000 cap applies per item of tangible personal property, though not to transient rentals or services. **And one county has already published its impact fees to 2030.** St. Johns County's schedule runs in five phases, Phase I effective 4 March 2026 and Phase V effective 4 March 2030. A hotel or motel room moves from $3,927 to $4,716 across those phases; fast food with a drive-through from $29,790 to $39,721 per 1,000 square feet. A project timed across a phase boundary carries a different hard cost depending on which side of it the permit falls.

The Jacksonville, FL metro is home to about 1,760,548 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Duval County at 1,055,159; St. Johns County at 334,928; Clay County at 236,760; Nassau County at 104,376.

This metro has 1,760,548 residents across five counties, and the differences between those counties are larger than the metro's size would suggest. One is a consolidated city-county, one is among Florida's fastest growing and has priced its growth out to 2030, and three front the Atlantic.

Consolidation changes the millage frame. The Office of Economic and Demographic Research records that Duval County and the City of Jacksonville are a consolidated government carrying a twenty mill cap, because the unit levies as both a county and a municipality. Florida's Constitution supplies the backing, and the 1885 article the Legislature preserved describes a municipal corporation coextensive with Duval whose territory may be divided into subordinate districts with their own taxation. The practical consequence for a study is that a Duval site is not benchmarked against an ordinary Florida county's millage headroom.

A lodging levy only this county can use. The same analyst records that a county consolidated with one or more municipalities, currently only Duval, may levy the Consolidated County Convention Development Tax under the statute, a 2 percent transient rental tax, forecast at $12.1 million for 2025-26. This page carries it as evidence of what consolidation does rather than as a lodging rate table.

The surtax follows delivery, not the seller. For calendar year 2026 the Department of Revenue puts Duval at 1.5 percent, Clay at 1.5 percent, Baker at 1 percent, Nassau at 1 percent and St. Johns at one half of one percent. The Department states that the surtax is collected at the county rate where delivery is made, and that a $5,000 cap applies on a single item of tangible personal property, which does not extend to transient rentals or services. For a project buying equipment across county lines that is a procurement decision with a tax consequence.

St. Johns has published its impact fees to 2030. The county's schedule runs in five phases with Phase I effective 4 March 2026 and Phase V effective 4 March 2030, already published rather than forecast. Hotel and motel rooms run from $3,927 to $4,716 across the phases, fast food with a drive-through from $29,790 to $39,721 per 1,000 square feet, and warehousing from $1,270 to $1,531 per 1,000 square feet. Florida statute separately limits how fast an impact fee may be phased in, at 25 and 50 percent thresholds over four installments and no more than once every four years. This page does not assert which statutory subsection the county relied on, because the county publishes the phases, the statute publishes the limits, and neither source connects them.

And three counties front the ocean. Florida draws a coastal construction control line county by county on a 100-year storm surge basis. Nothing may be built seaward of it without a Department of Environmental Protection permit, and the Department may not permit a structure that its own erosion projections place seaward of the seasonal high-water line within 30 years. The Department's permit-manager roster lists Duval, Nassau and St. Johns among the counties with a line.

Nationally, the U.S. Small Business Administration closed fiscal year 2025 having guaranteed 84,400 7(a) and 504 loans for $44.8 billion. The Jacksonville metro cut is computed here from the SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA release by county membership across the five member counties, never read from a district office total.

In fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 391 7(a) approvals for $226,439,500 and 67 504 approvals for $67,296,000. The 504 count is high relative to the metro's size, which matters for a borrower choosing a programme.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in the SBA table account for 504 7(a) loans and 161 504 loans here. Hotels and motels carry the largest 7(a) dollar total at $182,045,500 over 67 loans at a 0.0 percent charge-off rate, ahead of restaurants at $144,191,900. The restaurant charge-off rate in this metro is 19.3 percent over 245 loans, and fitness and recreational sports centers run higher still at 22.9 percent, both worth a credit officer seeing before either file is underwritten. The full table is on the Jacksonville feasibility market research post.

USDA Business and Industry and 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 of more than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town. The Jacksonville urbanized core is therefore out. The 50,000 inhabitant test is the statute's general rule; the statute sets a different, lower threshold for community facility direct loans and grants, so which programme is being used matters as much as where the site is. MMCG's work here is for guaranteed lenders.

Baker County and the western parts of Clay and Nassau sit furthest from that core. The test turns on the subject address and the urbanized-area boundary around it rather than on the name of the town, so MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake. No town is named on this page as eligible on a model's say-so.

A hotel feasibility study Jacksonville lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Jacksonville MSA drew 67 SBA 7(a) loans for $182,045,500 at a 0.0 percent charge-off rate and 22 SBA 504 loans. That is the largest 7(a) dollar total among the ten asset classes in this metro record.

The county then decides the rest. A St. Johns hotel carries an impact fee per room that is already published through 2030, moving from $3,927 to $4,716 across the five phases. An oceanfront site in Duval, Nassau or St. Johns sits against the coastal construction control line before anything else is discussed.

These are the points a Jacksonville underwriter checks first. 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 county settles the surtax rate and, in St. Johns, the impact fee phase the permit will fall in. The address settles whether the site sits seaward of the coastal construction control line, and in Duval it settles that the millage frame is the consolidated one rather than an ordinary county's.

The report names its sources the way this page does. The consolidation and the convention development tax come from the Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research and from the Florida Constitution. Surtax rates come from the Department of Revenue's own current-year form. Impact fees come from St. Johns County Growth Management and the phase-in limits from the Florida Statutes, stated separately because neither source connects them. The coastal line comes from the statute and the Department of Environmental Protection. The SBA record is computed in house from the FOIA release.

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 Jacksonville 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 for 7(a) and 504 files and under 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities files, and each one states which schedule, rate and boundary it relied on so a credit officer can check the work rather than take it on trust. 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.