Feasibility Study Consultant in New Orleans, LA: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in New Orleans is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else. In fiscal year 2025 this metro recorded 194 SBA 7(a) approvals for $87,889,100. One rule a lender meets here: New Orleans hotel and motel tax by room count.

The New Orleans-Metairie, LA metro is home to about 966,230 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Jefferson Parish at 427,253; Orleans Parish at 362,701; St. Charles Parish at 50,400; St. Bernard Parish at 44,783.

A national template prices this metro on its 966,230 residents and stops there. The rules below come from the City of New Orleans, and each one changes a line of the model before a lender reads it.

New Orleans hotel and motel tax by room count. The City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue states that the combined Louisiana and Orleans Parish tax rate is 15% for hotel/motel sales at 10 or more rooms, and 17% for hotel/motel sales at 9 or fewer rooms. It also lists a Hotel Occupancy Privilege Tax charged to guests, set by the room capacity of the establishment: $1.00 per 24-hour period for 300 Rooms or More and $0.50 per 24-hour period for 1 to 299 Rooms. The page adds that members of the Convention and Visitors Bureau or the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp. may be required to collect an additional 1.75%. For a hotel project in Orleans Parish, these taxes sit on the guest's room charge, so a feasibility model should use the all-in percentage for the property's room-count tier and treat the per-room-night privilege tax as a flat add-on to the guest's price.

New Orleans combined sales tax and special district add-ons. The City of New Orleans Bureau of Revenue states that the combined Louisiana and Orleans Parish tax rate is 10% for sales of tangible personal property, shown as 5% Orleans Parish tax and 5% Louisiana Sales Tax, with an Orleans Parish Food and Drug Tax of 4.5%. The same page lists economic development districts that carry an additional tax rate: the French Quarter district an additional 0.245%, the Magnolia Marketplace district an additional 1%, and the Riverwalk-Spanish Plaza district an additional 2%. Each district is listed with a downloadable map. For a restaurant or hotel in Orleans Parish, a feasibility model should start from the 10% base and then check the site address against the district maps, adding the district rate where the site falls inside one.

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 New Orleans 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 seven parishes recorded 194 SBA 7(a) approvals for $87,889,100 and 4 SBA 504 approvals for $3,051,000.

In fiscal year 2025 the 7(a) approvals here came from Newtek Bank, National Association (45 loans, $20,331,000), Northeast Bank (38 loans, $4,994,200), and Hancock Whitney Bank (12 loans, $7,562,000), listed by approval count with the names as the SBA released them. The 504 approvals that year went through JEDCO Development Corporation (3 loans) and New Orleans Regional Business Development Loan Corporation (1 loan). The SBA's district office field reads Louisiana District Office on 193 of the 194 fiscal year 2025 7(a) rows, 99.5%, and Sacramento District Office on 1.

Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes tracked here account for 257 7(a) loans for $221,668,900 and 18 504 loans for $24,705,000 in this metro. In fiscal year 2025 alone those classes took 35 7(a) and 504 approvals for $26,126,100. 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 New Orleans the address decides it. The metro spans seven parishes, from Jefferson Parish at 427,253 residents to St. James Parish at 19,110, 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 New Orleans starts from the metro's own SBA record. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels account for 34 7(a) loans for $104,917,700 and 7 504 loans for $13,730,000 here, $118,647,700 in all. Full and limited service restaurants come to $68,546,300 over the same years.

For a hotel in this metro the publisher rules above are model lines rather than background: New Orleans hotel and motel tax by room count (the City of New Orleans).

These are the points an underwriter in New Orleans 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 City of New Orleans, 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 New Orleans 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.