Lender-Grade SBA and USDA Feasibility Studies, Calibrated to North Dakota

MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study consultant and feasibility study firm that produces feasibility studies for North Dakota projects where the analytical questions sit at an intersection of variables that no other balance sheet in the Upper Midwest replicates, beginning with the Bakken producing 1,124,766 barrels of crude oil per day in January 2026 per the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources Director's Cut of March 19, 2026 (97.4 percent of it from the Bakken and Three Forks formations, ranking North Dakota third among oil-producing states behind Texas and New Mexico) alongside 3.32 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas; a hyperscale artificial-intelligence data center buildout led by Applied Digital's Polaris Forge campuses at Ellendale and Harwood, where approximately $16 billion of contracted lease revenue from CoreWeave and a U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler now sits on 600 megawatts of committed capacity, supported by a data center sales and use tax exemption under North Dakota Century Code Section 57-39.2-04.17 that carries no cap on the number of qualifying facilities and no sunset and that saved qualifying operators more than $65 million on 2025 activity alone per Tax Commissioner Brian Kroshus's August 26, 2026 testimony to the interim Tax Reform and Relief Advisory Committee; an income tax structure with a three-bracket individual rate of 0, 1.95 and 2.5 percent under HB 1158 of 2023, no local income tax anywhere in the state, and a top corporate rate of 4.31 percent, against Minnesota's 9.85 percent individual and 9.8 percent corporate rates one state line to the east; a property tax regime that assesses at 50 percent of true and full value and then taxes commercial and agricultural property at 10 percent of assessed value (9 percent for residential), restructured by HB 1176 of the 2025 Legislature, which raised the Primary Residence Credit from $500 to $1,600, capped local levy dollar growth at 3 percent per year without voter approval (2 percent for the larger counties and cities), and funded the entire package from Legacy Fund earnings so that no political subdivision loses revenue; the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-owned general-service bank in the United States, holding $10.7 billion in assets and earning $231.8 million in 2025 while buying down commercial borrowing rates by up to 5 percentage points through its PACE, Flex PACE and Ag PACE programs and participating alongside every SBA 7(a) and 504 lender in the state; and an agricultural economy that ranks first in the nation in spring wheat, durum wheat, canola, flaxseed, honey, dry edible beans, oats, rye and sunflowers, now vertically integrated through the $350 million Green Bison soybean crush at Spiritwood, the North Dakota Soybean Processors plant at Casselton, and Marathon Petroleum's 184 million gallon per year renewable diesel refinery at Dickinson. Every engagement is calibrated to the project address, the program of record, and the specific lender, CDC, Bank of North Dakota officer, or North Dakota Department of Commerce contact carrying the deal.

Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. A complimentary preliminary North Dakota market overview within one business day of submission.

North Dakota closed July 1, 2025 at a record 799,358 residents across 53 counties per the Census Bureau, a fourth consecutive year of growth and 20,264 residents above the 2020 census, with the State Demographer indicating the state has likely since crossed 800,000. The state hosts a single SBA North Dakota District Office in Fargo serving all 53 counties, and the USDA Rural Development North Dakota State Office at 220 East Rosser Avenue, Room 208, Bismarck, which administers Business and Industry Guaranteed Loans, REAP, Community Facilities, and Water and Environmental Programs through area offices in Devils Lake, Dickinson and Minot. The North Dakota Department of Commerce administers the state incentive stack, the Bank of North Dakota administers the state's participation and buy-down lending, and the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency administers the Housing Incentive Fund and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.

Five North Dakota-specific variables redefine every North Dakota deal and require state-specific calibration that no national feasibility study template captures. North Dakota is the oil, wind, coal and grain anchor of the northern Great Plains, and it operates the only state-owned bank and one of the largest sovereign-style wealth funds in the country inside a tax structure that is structurally lighter than any neighbor east of the Missouri River.

First, the Bakken and the electricity mix that powers the data center cluster. North Dakota produced 1,124,766 barrels of oil per day in January 2026 and 1,129,813 in February 2026 per the Department of Mineral Resources, with Bakken and Three Forks wells accounting for 1,095,985 barrels per day. Natural gas production ran 103.0 billion cubic feet in January 2026. The state's electricity is generated 53.1 percent from lignite coal and 36.2 percent from wind per EIA full-year 2025 data, with natural gas at 5.3 percent and hydro at 5.2 percent, placing North Dakota sixth nationally in wind share of generation on approximately 4,500 megawatts of installed wind capacity. The grid is served by Xcel Energy, Montana-Dakota Utilities, Otter Tail Power, Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative. That combination of dispatchable baseload and low-cost wind, together with a cold climate, abundant land and the uncapped data center sales tax exemption, produced the fastest hyperscale buildout in the northern Plains: Applied Digital's Polaris Forge 1 at Ellendale in Dickey County has 400 megawatts fully contracted to CoreWeave under approximately 15-year leases worth roughly $11 billion, energized its first 100 megawatt building in November 2025, and is designed to scale to 1 gigawatt between 2028 and 2030; Polaris Forge 2 near Harwood in Cass County is a roughly $5 billion, 200 megawatt campus leased to a U.S. investment-grade hyperscaler under an October 22, 2025 agreement, sited on more than 900 acres with a projected PUE of 1.18 and near-zero water use, with first phases online in 2026 and 2027. Macquarie Asset Management has committed up to $5 billion in preferred equity to the buildout. This is the single highest-leverage North Dakota CRE demand variable outside the oil patch: it drives construction labor and materials demand in Dickey, Cass and Stutsman counties, creates workforce lodging demand that Ellendale and Jamestown have never previously absorbed, and produces ancillary multifamily, hotel and retail demand along the I-94 corridor at a pace no national absorption model captures without local calibration.

Second, the income tax structure. HB 1158 of the 2023 Legislature delivered the largest income tax cut in state history at $358 million over the biennium, zeroing the bottom bracket and collapsing the remaining brackets into 1.95 percent and 2.5 percent, with the 2.5 percent rate reached only above approximately $244,825 of taxable income for single filers and $298,075 for joint filers. No North Dakota county or city levies an income tax. The corporate income tax runs through three brackets to a top marginal rate of 4.31 percent, unchanged since 2015, placing North Dakota among the states with a top corporate rate at or below 5 percent. The state sales tax is 5.0 percent with local option additions that commonly bring combined rates to 7 to 8 percent. Set against Minnesota's 9.85 percent top individual rate and 9.8 percent corporate rate, the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area carries the sharpest cross-border tax differential of any bi-state metro in the Upper Midwest, and every North Dakota sponsor return projection is modeled to the specific entity structure rather than to a regional average.

Third, the property tax mechanics and the HB 1176 overhaul. North Dakota assesses property at 50 percent of true and full value and then applies a taxable-value percentage of 9 percent for residential and 10 percent for commercial and agricultural property, so that a $4 million commercial building carries an assessed value of $2 million and a taxable value of $200,000 against which local mill levies apply. HB 1176, sponsored by Representative Mike Nathe, backed by Governor Kelly Armstrong, passed by the Senate unanimously and by the House 86 to 4 in the final days of the 2025 session, raised the Primary Residence Credit from $500 to $1,600 for tax years 2025 and 2026, imposed a 3 percent cap on annual local levy dollar growth without voter approval (2 percent for counties and park districts above 20,000 residents and cities above 10,000), and funded the package with approximately $398.4 million from a newly created Legacy Fund property tax relief fund. The credit zeroed out property tax for roughly 50,000 households, with a 15-county sample showing a 46 percent average reduction, and drew 145,000 applications, or about 95 percent of eligible households, for 2025. The reform followed the November 2024 defeat of Measure 4, which would have abolished property tax on assessed value outright, and at least one legislator has signaled an initiated measure for the November 2026 ballot targeting other property classes. For any North Dakota commercial or multifamily study, MMCG models the levy cap directly into the property tax line over the projection horizon rather than escalating at a national average.

Fourth, the Bank of North Dakota, the Legacy Fund, and the state incentive architecture. The Bank of North Dakota, established in 1919 and headquartered in Bismarck, closed 2025 with $10.7 billion in total assets, $231.8 million in net income (up from $200.4 million in 2024), a 17.2 percent return on investment, an S&P rating of A+ with stable outlook, and $1.3 billion in net assets across its Legislature-Directed Programs. Its PACE, Flex PACE and Ag PACE programs buy down borrower interest by up to 5 percentage points on primary-sector and community-development projects, with the buy-down split between the local community and the Bank on an annually set ratio; its Beginning Entrepreneur Loan Guarantee, participation loans and Match Loan program allow it to sit alongside SBA 7(a), SBA 504 and USDA guarantees in the same capital stack. The Legacy Fund, funded by oil and gas tax revenue, stands at approximately $13 billion, has directed more than $500 million into in-state investments as of fiscal year 2025 through the North Dakota Growth Fund ($111.5 million committed across seven funds and four direct co-investments supporting 23 North Dakota businesses) and Bank of North Dakota fixed-income placements ($391 million across nine Match Loans and 23 infrastructure loans), and carries a $600 million in-state equity target. The Renaissance Zone program, the new and expanding business property tax exemption, payments in lieu of taxes, tax increment financing under NDCC Chapter 40-58, the North Dakota Development Fund, the New Jobs Training Program and the Housing Incentive Fund complete a public-finance architecture that, layered correctly, reduces effective equity requirements on qualifying North Dakota deals in ways that a national template does not see.

Fifth, the grain, oilseed, sugar and protein economy. North Dakota leads the nation in spring wheat (roughly 57 percent of U.S. production), durum wheat (roughly 64 percent), canola (roughly 85 percent), flaxseed, honey, all dry edible beans, pinto beans, oats, rye and all sunflowers, ranks second in lentils, dry edible peas and barley, and third in sugar beets. Soybeans lead all commodities by cash receipts at approximately $2.6 billion. The processing base that converts those commodities into industrial and logistics demand has expanded sharply since 2023: Green Bison Soy Processing at the Spiritwood Energy Park east of Jamestown, a $350 million joint venture between ADM (75 percent) and Marathon Petroleum (25 percent), crushes 150,000 bushels per day into approximately 600 million pounds of refined soybean oil and 1.3 million tons of meal annually and ships oil to Marathon's Dickinson renewable diesel refinery; North Dakota Soybean Processors opened the state's second dedicated crush plant at Casselton in 2024; the state's six ethanol plants produce 550 million gallons per year from roughly 210 million bushels of corn, led by Tharaldson Ethanol at Casselton (175 million gallons, the sixth-largest plant in the country); American Crystal Sugar operates at Drayton and Hillsboro and Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative at Wahpeton; and Dakota Growers Pasta at Carrington is the third-largest pasta manufacturer in North America. For USDA Business and Industry, REAP and Community Facilities feasibility work, the breadth of food and fuel processing investment in counties that retain rural-eligible designation creates an active USDA pipeline that MMCG models to the specific program of record rather than assuming SBA as the default.

North Dakota operates a single SBA District Office in Fargo covering all 53 counties. The dominant North Dakota SBA 7(a) lender stack includes Bell Bank (Fargo, one of the largest independently owned banks in the country), Choice Bank, Gate City Bank, Starion Bank, Cornerstone Bank, First International Bank and Trust, Dacotah Bank, Alerus, BNC National Bank, Bremer Bank (now Old National), and national-platform lenders led by Live Oak Bank. The lead North Dakota Certified Development Company for SBA 504 lending is Dakota Business Lending, founded in 1982 and headquartered in Fargo with a Bismarck office, which has been the number-one 504 lender in the state for more than 15 years, has originated more than $600 million in lifetime 504 loans across approximately 1,228 projects with more than $1.2 billion in total project impact, lends across North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota, and is the first North Dakota-based recipient of New Markets Tax Credit allocations ($30 million in 2021, $30 million in 2022, $50 million in 2024 and approximately $70 million in 2025). Lake Agassiz Development Group in Fargo (SBA 504 since 2004, SBA Microloan, USDA RMAP and IRP intermediary) and Lewis and Clark Development Group (SBA 504 and VetLoan Advantage) complete the CDC set. The Native American Development Center in Bismarck serves as an SBA microloan intermediary across the state's tribal geography.

The USDA Rural Development North Dakota State Office at 220 East Rosser Avenue, Bismarck, is led by State Director Tom Campbell, a Grafton-area potato grower and former state senator appointed by Secretary Brooke Rollins who assumed office on May 2, 2025, succeeding Erin Oban. Area offices in Devils Lake, Dickinson and Minot enable county-level engagement on Business and Industry and Community Facilities applications. Recent activity includes the November 14, 2024 announcement of nearly $3 million in REAP energy-efficiency awards across the state, ranging from $18,000 for a Hunter-area solar array to more than $1 million for Hankinson Renewable Energy; the August 21, 2024 package of nearly $12 million in grants and loans for infrastructure, nonprofits and small businesses in rural and tribal communities; and the $5 million electric-infrastructure rebuild announced during Secretary Rollins's April 22, 2025 visit to the state. REAP awards in fiscal year 2023 totaled $4.35 million across 31 investments against $12.0 million of total project cost. Under the current USDA posture, REAP, Business and Industry and Community Facilities for production-agriculture, food-processing and rural-infrastructure projects are prioritized, and sponsors should align pre-application narratives with the agency's rural jobs and domestic food-production emphasis.

The Bank of North Dakota is the capital-markets variable that out-of-state lenders most consistently misprice. No other state offers a state-owned bank that will participate in a community bank's commercial real estate loan, buy down the borrower rate by up to 5 percentage points on a qualifying project, and fund infrastructure and match loans from Legacy Fund capital. On every North Dakota engagement MMCG identifies at intake whether the deal qualifies for PACE or Flex PACE, whether the host community has buy-down allocation remaining for the year, and whether the project fits the Bank's participation parameters alongside the SBA or USDA guarantee, and quantifies the resulting cost of capital in the Financial Feasibility analysis rather than noting it as a footnote.

The Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area contains approximately 261,600 residents across Cass County, North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota, with Cass County at approximately 201,794 residents the most populous county in the state and the city of Fargo at approximately 136,275. Gross regional product reached $24.1 billion in 2025, nearly tripling from $7.9 billion in 2005, and the metro ranked 11th of 387 U.S. metropolitan areas for industry diversity in 2025, up from 72nd in 2023, per the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation. Metro unemployment ran 2.3 percent in 2024. Horace, on the metro's southwest flank, was the fastest-growing city in the state at 10.6 percent in a single year and has nearly doubled since 2020.

The corporate base is anchored by Sanford Health, the largest employer in the Dakotas with approximately 55,000 employees system-wide and its principal Fargo hospital and clinic campus; Essentia Health; North Dakota State University, with 11,952 students in fall 2025, the state's fourth-largest employer, and a $100 million Offerdahl engineering complex opening in fall 2026; Microsoft, whose Fargo campus is its largest outside Redmond; Doosan Bobcat, North America's largest compact-equipment manufacturer, headquartered in West Fargo with more than 3,800 employees across West Fargo, Gwinner, Bismarck, Wahpeton and Fargo and the largest manufacturer in the state; Bell Bank; Noridian Healthcare Solutions; Scheels; and Amazon's regional fulfillment operation. Applied Digital's Polaris Forge 2 campus at Harwood sits immediately north of the metro and will carry construction-phase demand into West Fargo, Harwood and north Fargo through 2027.

The Fargo-Moorhead Area Diversion is the defining infrastructure event of the decade. The $3.2 billion project, funded by $750 million in federal appropriations including $437 million under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $850 million from North Dakota and $135 million from Minnesota, will be operational in 2027 and protect more than 273,000 residents across Fargo, Moorhead, West Fargo, Horace and Harwood. The Metro Flood Diversion Authority approved a $1 billion cash budget for 2026, its last year of major construction, with 80 percent of channel excavation complete and all 19 bridges open by spring 2026. Removal of the 100-year floodplain constraint across the southern growth corridor materially expands the developable land base for multifamily, industrial and retail in Horace, south Fargo and West Fargo, and MMCG models post-Diversion flood-insurance and site-eligibility conditions explicitly on every metro engagement.

The metro is a single labor market split across a state line, and the cross-border differential is structural: North Dakota is a right-to-work state with no state prevailing-wage regime on private work and a 2.5 percent top individual income tax rate, while Minnesota carries a prevailing-wage regime and a 9.85 percent top rate. For any Fargo-West Fargo industrial, multifamily or hospitality feasibility study, MMCG models the North Dakota-side cost and tax advantage explicitly against the Moorhead alternative rather than treating the metro as a single undifferentiated market.

Bismarck-Mandan is the state capital and the administrative and financial center of the western half of the state, with the city of Bismarck at approximately 78,000 residents and Burleigh County among the state's fastest-growing counties. State government employment anchors the office and services base, and the healthcare sector is anchored by Sanford Bismarck and CHI St. Alexius Health. MDU Resources Group and Knife River Corporation (the construction-materials company spun out of MDU) are headquartered in Bismarck, as is the Bank of North Dakota; Doosan Bobcat operates an attachment plant and its Acceleration Center in the metro; and Bismarck State College provides the energy-sector workforce pipeline for the lignite, oil and utility employers of the Missouri River corridor. The Bakken service economy routes much of its back-office, engineering, legal and banking demand through Bismarck, which cushions the metro against the drilling cycle that drives Williston and Watford City.

The NDSU 2024 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment projects that North Dakota requires 20,382 additional housing units by 2027, a 6 percent increase, with the strongest need concentrated in Region VII (Bismarck) and Region V (Fargo). Thirty-six percent of North Dakota housing units are renter-occupied, statewide multifamily vacancy averaged approximately 9 percent over the trailing five-year period, and the HUD two-bedroom Fair Market Rent for the state stands at $956. For any Bismarck-Mandan multifamily study, MMCG calibrates absorption to the Region VII demand estimate and models the HB 1176 levy cap directly into the property tax line.

Grand Forks is anchored by Grand Forks Air Force Base, which generated an $861 million total economic impact in 2024 ($645 million in payroll and $216 million in goods and services expenditures per the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corporation), hosts the 319th Reconnaissance Wing and the RQ-4 Global Hawk mission, and in 2026 completed a 25,000 square foot Space Development Agency satellite test and checkout center. The Grand Sky unmanned aircraft systems business park adjacent to the base has grown Grand Forks County UAS employment from 712 jobs in 2015 to 1,400 in 2025 at an average salary of $105,912. The University of North Dakota set an all-time enrollment record of 15,844 students in fall 2025, up 825 or 5.49 percent and nearly 600 above the prior 2012 record, anchoring the state's aerospace, aviation and medical-education economy; the North Dakota University System as a whole reached 47,552 students, its highest enrollment since 2014. Altru Health System anchors the regional healthcare base.

The Fufeng Group's proposed $700 million wet corn mill was cancelled by a unanimous Grand Forks City Council vote in February 2023 following an Air Force determination that the project posed a national-security risk given its proximity to the base. The replacement ag-processing pipeline is larger: Epitome Energy's approximately $400 to $500 million soybean crush plant, permitted by the state in June 2024 and sized to 42 million bushels per year, and a proposed Agristo potato-processing plant on the former Fufeng site together represent upwards of $1 billion of ag-processing investment over the next five years. For any Grand Forks industrial, multifamily, hotel or medical-adjacent study, the base, the university and the ag-processing pipeline are modeled directly as the demand anchors rather than assumed from census-level income statistics.

Minot Air Force Base is the only dual-wing nuclear-capable installation in the United States, hosting the 5th Bomb Wing's B-52H fleet and the 91st Missile Wing's Minuteman III force across an approximately 8,500 square mile missile complex on 24,541 acres. The base reported a total economic impact of $956.7 million for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2025, up from $651.6 million in fiscal year 2024, with a base population of 11,272, approximately 6,957 jobs and an active-duty payroll above $400 million. The base maintains 1,121 dormitory rooms and 1,440 privatized on-base homes.

The single largest construction-driven lodging and workforce-housing catalyst in the state over the next decade is the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile modernization and the AGM-181 Long Range Standoff weapon program: more than $2 billion of Sentinel construction from fiscal year 2026 through fiscal year 2040, more than $150 million of B-52 LRSO construction across five projects through fiscal year 2033, and more than $900 million across more than 400 base infrastructure projects, an aggregate of approximately $5 billion over 10 to 15 years. The Site Activation Task Force Detachment 12 was activated in 2025, and the fiscal year 2027 budget request includes more than $230 million for the first two Sentinel launch complexes. Any Minot limited-service, extended-stay or workforce-housing study must model the missile-field construction workforce explicitly, on a phased basis tied to the published construction schedule, rather than assuming it as organic demand growth.

Trinity Health's southwest Minot campus, opened in April 2023, comprises a 594,000 square foot hospital and a 196,000 square foot medical office building on 43 acres with 147 private patient rooms at a combined project cost of approximately $561 million, and the Souris River flood-protection program remains an ongoing public-works driver across Ward County.

The Bakken in 2026 operates in a disciplined-capital regime rather than a boom. The North Dakota active rig count has run between 19 and 36 through the year, with the low-to-mid 20s the established norm, reflecting operator focus on free cash flow, longer laterals and refracturing rather than rig-count growth, even as statewide production holds above 1.1 million barrels per day. Wellhead prices ran near $53 per barrel in late 2025 at a roughly $6.61 per barrel discount to WTI, and the Department of Mineral Resources expects production to hold steady through 2026.

The housing history of the corridor is structurally boom-and-bust. Watford City's population quadrupled from approximately 1,400 in 2000 to approximately 6,000 in 2024, and at the 2012 to 2014 peak apartments reached $4,000 per month and single-family homes $12,000 per month per the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Williams County (Williston) now stands at approximately 41,767 residents and remains one of the state's growth counties. For any Williston, Watford City or Dickinson hotel, RV park, workforce-housing, multifamily or oilfield-service industrial study, MMCG underwrites to steady-state rig-count-linked demand and stress-tests against the trailing cycle rather than modeling to peak.

Dickinson is anchored by Marathon Petroleum's renewable diesel refinery, converted from a petroleum refinery and rated at 184 million gallons per year of 100 percent renewable diesel from corn oil, soybean oil, fats and greases, employing approximately 110 workers and generating federal RIN, Section 45Z and LCFS credit streams, with soybean oil sourced from the Green Bison crush at Spiritwood. Dickinson State University and the Stark County oilfield-service base complete the Dickinson demand set.

The Spiritwood Energy Park east of Jamestown is the state's most concentrated agri-industrial cluster: Green Bison Soy Processing ($350 million, 150,000 bushels per day, approximately 75 direct employees, operational since September 2023 as the state's first dedicated soybean crush plant and the 2023 Economic Development Association of North Dakota Project of the Year), co-located with the Spiritwood Station combined power and steam plant and Dakota Spirit AgEnergy's 75 million gallon ethanol plant, with Applied Digital's Jamestown data center footprint and the Ellendale Polaris Forge 1 campus 50 miles south. ADM announced in July 2026 a capacity expansion across four crush plants including Spiritwood with completion expected in mid-2028. Wahpeton anchors Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative's sugar beet plant, a Doosan Bobcat manufacturing plant and the North Dakota State College of Science. Devils Lake hosts the USDA Rural Development area office for the northeast quadrant and Lake Region State College. Valley City anchors Valley City State University and the I-94 corridor between Jamestown and Fargo.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation at Fort Berthold (whose reservation overlies a substantial share of Bakken production), the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and the Spirit Lake Nation constitute core USDA Community Facilities, tribal-lending and CDFI geography. USDA Rural Development directed part of its August 2024 investment package to these communities, and the Native American Development Center in Bismarck serves as the SBA microloan intermediary. For any tribal-land or tribal-adjacent project, MMCG confirms the trust-land, leasehold and title-status treatment under the applicable program of record at intake.

North Dakota's agricultural economy spans three distinct production geographies, each with its own USDA Rural Development thesis. The Red River Valley on the eastern border (Cass, Traill, Grand Forks, Walsh, Pembina and Richland counties) is the sugar beet, potato, dry bean and soybean corridor, anchored by American Crystal Sugar at Drayton and Hillsboro, Minn-Dak at Wahpeton, the Tharaldson and North Dakota Soybean Processors complex at Casselton, and the Epitome Energy and Agristo pipeline at Grand Forks. The central spring wheat, durum and canola belt (Stutsman, Wells, Foster, Eddy, Benson, Towner, Rolette, Bottineau and McHenry counties) feeds Dakota Growers Pasta at Carrington and the Spiritwood complex. The western grazing and grain belt (Stark, Hettinger, Bowman, Slope, Golden Valley and McKenzie counties) feeds the cattle and bison economy, in which North Dakota ranks approximately fourth nationally in bison, and the Dickinson renewable diesel refinery.

The biofuel corridor spans the state: six ethanol plants at 550 million gallons per year, including Tharaldson at Casselton (175 million gallons), Guardian Energy at Hankinson (approximately 155 million gallons), Dakota Spirit at Spiritwood (75 million gallons), Blue Flint at Underwood (70 million gallons), Gevo's Red Trail plant at Richardton (approximately 65 million gallons, acquired in 2024 with announced plans to roughly double site capacity) and Red River Biorefinery at Grand Forks (approximately 16.5 million gallons from beet and potato waste). North Dakota was the first state granted EPA Class VI primacy for carbon dioxide injection wells, on April 24, 2018. Minnkota Power Cooperative's Project Tundra at the Milton R. Young Station in Oliver County, an approximately $1 billion capture and storage project designed for an average of 4.0 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, holds North Dakota Industrial Commission Class VI storage permits, and Summit Carbon Solutions holds Industrial Commission storage and injection permits approved in December 2024. A December 2025 district court ruling in favor of the Northwest Landowners Association found the state's pore-space amalgamation statute unconstitutional and is on appeal; for any ethanol expansion, sustainable-aviation-fuel conversion, carbon-capture retrofit or biorefinery USDA REAP or Business and Industry deal, MMCG models the Section 45Z and storage-permitting scenarios alongside the base case and presents both to the lender as a structured optionality analysis rather than assuming the more favorable revenue projection.

The USDA REAP pipeline in North Dakota covers a far broader range than biofuels alone. The state's rural electric cooperatives and the Basin Electric and Minnkota generation-and-transmission systems have delivered hundreds of REAP-financed projects covering grain-drying efficiency, on-farm solar, livestock-facility upgrades and small wind. MMCG calibrates the REAP analysis to the specific cooperative territory, the available grant percentage (up to 50 percent of eligible project cost), and the North Dakota State Office's current fiscal-year pipeline to identify whether the project is competing in a grant round or a loan-guarantee round.

Beyond the energy, data center, defense, healthcare and ag-processing anchors, MMCG is a feasibility study firm that produces lender-grade feasibility studies across the full range of North Dakota asset classes. Hotel and hospitality feasibility spans the Fargo convention and corporate market anchored by the Fargodome and the NDSU and Sanford demand base, the Bismarck state-government and Bakken-professional market, the Grand Forks university, base and UAS market, the Minot Sentinel construction-phase lodging market, the Bakken crew-lodging market in Williston, Watford City and Dickinson, and the Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park corridor, where visitation rose 27.3 percent through April 2026 and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opens later in 2026. North Dakota tourism in 2025 recorded 25.6 million visitors and $3.4 billion in visitor spending, supporting more than 46,000 jobs or 6.5 percent of state employment, but a 23.9 percent decline in Canadian border crossings following the March 2025 tariff escalation removed an estimated $57 million in direct Canadian spending; any hotel, retail, duty-free or convenience feasibility study within the Pembina-Emerson or Portal corridors carries an explicit cross-border sensitivity.

RV park, workforce housing and outdoor hospitality feasibility draws on the Bakken crew-housing cycle, the Minot missile-field construction workforce, the Missouri River reservoir system at Lake Sakakawea and Lake Oahe, the Devils Lake fishery, the Turtle Mountains, and the Badlands corridor, with explicit seasonality modeling for a climate in which the operating season is materially shorter than the national template assumes. Self-storage demand is calibrated to the Fargo and Bismarck suburban growth corridors, the West Fargo and Horace rooftop expansion, and the oil-patch mobility pattern in Williams, McKenzie and Stark counties. Gas station, convenience and car wash feasibility is calibrated to I-94 and I-29 traffic counts, the U.S. 2 and U.S. 85 energy-corridor truck flows, and the Cenex, Holiday, Casey's, Loaf 'N Jug and Cash Wise competitive sets modeled directly. Assisted living, senior housing and childcare feasibility is matched to the Cass, Burleigh, Grand Forks and Ward county demographic cohorts and to the aging rural counties of the central and western grain belt, where Sanford's Good Samaritan Society network and USDA Community Facilities financing for nonprofit operators define the competitive and capital landscape. Industrial and flex feasibility is calibrated to the Fargo-West Fargo manufacturing and logistics base, the Bismarck-Mandan energy-service corridor, the Grand Forks UAS and ag-processing cluster, and the Bakken oilfield-service market. Each asset class is benchmarked against the relevant North Dakota submarket comparable set rather than national averages, with the income tax structure, the property tax mechanics and HB 1176 levy cap, the Bank of North Dakota buy-down and participation posture, the REAP and Business and Industry program fit, and the data center sales tax exemption all modeled directly where relevant.

First, the property tax base is a fraction of true and full value. Commercial and agricultural property is taxed on 10 percent of a 50 percent assessment, so taxable value is 5 percent of true and full value and the headline mill levy overstates the effective burden by a factor of twenty. MMCG models the property tax line from the county's actual consolidated mill levy applied to taxable value, with the HB 1176 3 percent levy-growth cap (2 percent in the larger jurisdictions) carried through the projection horizon.

Second, the income tax differential is entity-specific and cross-border. A 2.5 percent top individual rate with no local income tax against Minnesota's 9.85 percent, and a 4.31 percent top corporate rate against Minnesota's 9.8 percent, changes sponsor after-tax returns on every Fargo-Moorhead deal and every deal with a Minnesota-domiciled sponsor. MMCG models the pass-through versus C-corporation treatment to the specific sponsor structure.

Third, the Bank of North Dakota belongs in the capital stack. A PACE or Flex PACE buy-down of up to 5 percentage points on a qualifying project, or a participation alongside the community bank's 7(a) or 504 loan, is a quantified cost-of-capital input, not a marketing footnote. MMCG confirms eligibility and community allocation at intake.

Fourth, the data center sales tax exemption is uncapped and uncalendared. NDCC Section 57-39.2-04.17 exempts enterprise information technology equipment and software for any qualifying facility of 15,000 square feet or more, at least half of which is used for data processing, constructed or refurbished after December 31, 2020, with no limit on the number of qualifying facilities and no sunset, though it does not exempt the building shell and it is under legislative review for the 2027 session. MMCG models the exemption to the specific equipment schedule and flags the 2027 review risk.

Fifth, the Bakken is underwritten to the rig count, not the headline production figure. Production above 1.1 million barrels per day on a low-20s rig count means that oilfield-service industrial, crew lodging and workforce housing in Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail, Dunn and Stark counties track drilling activity rather than volume. MMCG models the trailing rig-count cycle explicitly.

Sixth, Minot's Sentinel and LRSO construction is phased, not organic. Approximately $5 billion of missile-field and base construction over 10 to 15 years is modeled against the published fiscal-year appropriation schedule and the Site Activation Task Force timeline, with the construction workforce treated as a phased transient-lodging and workforce-housing demand segment.

Seventh, the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion changes the developable land base. Post-2027 removal of the 100-year floodplain across the southern metro is modeled into site eligibility, flood-insurance cost and competitive supply for every Horace, south Fargo and West Fargo study.

Eighth, the USDA Rural Development North Dakota State Office under Director Campbell prioritizes production-agriculture, food-processing and rural-infrastructure projects. For any rural North Dakota deal above $3 million with an ag-processing, biofuel, carbon-storage or rural-infrastructure nexus, MMCG tests USDA program fit before SBA as a matter of standard protocol.

Ninth, the Canadian border is a live demand variable. A 23.9 percent decline in 2025 Canadian crossings and an estimated $57 million in lost Canadian spending are modeled as an explicit sensitivity on any hospitality, retail or convenience project within the I-29 Pembina-Emerson corridor or the U.S. 52 Portal corridor, with tariff status treated as a monitored input rather than a fixed assumption.

Tenth, labor is the binding constraint, not cost. Unemployment of 2.6 percent, labor-force participation of 69.5 percent (second-highest in the nation), right-to-work status and a $7.25 minimum wage with local ordinances preempted produce a structurally low labor cost basis but a structurally thin labor supply. MMCG quantifies construction timeline and staffing-cost risk in the Technical Feasibility analysis rather than treating workforce availability as a qualitative note.

Engagement begins with the project address, asset class, total capitalization, sponsor structure (pass-through versus C-corporation, and Minnesota versus North Dakota domicile where relevant), sponsor experience, and the specific lender, CDC, Bank of North Dakota officer, or North Dakota Department of Commerce contact carrying the deal. MMCG confirms SBA SOP 50 10 8 applicability across the single North Dakota District Office geography, the USDA program of record (Business and Industry, REAP, Community Facilities, or Water and Environmental Programs) administered from the Bismarck State Office, and the relevant North Dakota state stack: Bank of North Dakota PACE, Flex PACE and Ag PACE eligibility and participation fit, Renaissance Zone status for any downtown or core-area project, the new and expanding business property tax exemption and PILOT posture of the host jurisdiction, TIF district status under NDCC Chapter 40-58, the data center sales tax exemption for any energy-intensive use, the Housing Incentive Fund and LIHTC allocation posture where housing is involved, and trust-land and leasehold treatment for any tribal or tribal-adjacent site. A complimentary preliminary North Dakota market overview is delivered within one business day of submission, before any fee is collected, and includes the sponsor tax structure flag, the taxable-value and mill-levy property tax estimate, the Bank of North Dakota program fit, the TIF and Renaissance Zone posture of the host municipality, and the applicable USDA or Department of Commerce program eligibility determination.

The study itself is built around four analyses calibrated to the North Dakota deal: an Economic Analysis (the Bakken rig-count and production context for any western North Dakota project; the data center and hyperscale construction context for any Dickey, Cass or Stutsman County project; the Sentinel construction context for any Ward County project; the base, university and ag-processing context for any Grand Forks project; the Diversion and corporate-anchor context for any Fargo-Moorhead project; and the individual-versus-corporate tax structure for any sponsor return projection), a Market Feasibility Analysis (parcel-level absorption, comparable performance, ADR or rent benchmarks, and competitive position across the relevant North Dakota submarket), a Technical Feasibility Analysis (site, entitlement, flood-zone and post-Diversion status, workforce availability, seasonality and constructability with the right-to-work labor cost basis quantified), and a Financial Feasibility Analysis (stabilized assumptions, lease-up curve, DCF through stabilization and reversion, debt service coverage at the lender-required threshold, equity injection mechanics under SOP 50 10 8, property tax modeled from taxable value and the county mill levy with the HB 1176 levy cap carried forward, the Bank of North Dakota buy-down or participation quantified in the cost of capital, the 2.5 percent pass-through versus 4.31 percent corporate rate modeled to the specific sponsor structure, and the Department of Commerce, Housing Finance Agency and TIF incentive schedule quantified rather than asserted). Draft delivery goes to the sponsor and the lender, CDC, or agency contact simultaneously, with the review cycle through final lender acceptance accommodated and no additional fees for normal-course revision rounds.

Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule. Delivery in 9 to 16 business days. Engagement begins with the project address, the sponsor tax structure, the program of record, and the participating lender, CDC, Bank of North Dakota officer, or North Dakota Department of Commerce contact.

MMCG is a feasibility study consultant that produces feasibility studies across the states bordering North Dakota, allowing multi-state sponsors and regional lenders to route an entire pipeline through a single feasibility partner. North Dakota borders Minnesota to the east across the Red River, where Fargo-Moorhead and Grand Forks-East Grand Forks are bi-state metros and the right-to-work, prevailing-wage and income-tax differentials are the most consequential cost variables in the corridor; South Dakota to the south, where the absence of any state income tax and the Sioux Falls healthcare and financial-services pull shape the I-29 corridor from Wahpeton south; Montana to the west, where the Bakken extends into Richland County and Sidney and where the Sentinel modernization at Malmstrom Air Force Base runs on the same program schedule as Minot; and Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the north, where the Pembina-Emerson crossing on I-29 is the fifth-busiest Canada-U.S. port of entry and the second-busiest west of the Great Lakes at approximately CA$16.9 billion in annual truck trade, and where Portal on U.S. 52 is the principal Saskatchewan commercial crossing. Cross-border deals involving the Fargo-Moorhead labor and tax arbitrage, the Sidney-Williston Bakken corridor, the Sioux Falls-Fargo I-29 distribution corridor, and the Winnipeg-Grand Forks-Fargo trade corridor are calibrated to the regulatory, tax and incentive framework on each side of the line.

MMCG produces feasibility studies in every North Dakota county and municipality, including Fargo, West Fargo, Horace, Harwood, Casselton, Bismarck, Mandan, Lincoln, Grand Forks, East Grand Forks, Minot, Williston, Watford City, Dickinson, Jamestown, Wahpeton, Devils Lake, Valley City, Beulah, Hazen, Washburn, Underwood, Garrison, New Town, Stanley, Tioga, Kenmare, Bottineau, Rugby, Harvey, Carrington, New Rockford, Cooperstown, Hillsboro, Mayville, Grafton, Drayton, Cavalier, Langdon, Park River, Larimore, Ellendale, Oakes, LaMoure, Lisbon, Hankinson, Richardton, Belfield, Medora, Beach, Bowman, Hettinger, Mott, Elgin, Linton, Wishek, Napoleon and Ashley.

The 53 North Dakota counties served, by region: Cass, Richland, Ransom, Sargent, Steele, Traill and Barnes in the Red River Valley South and Fargo Metro; Grand Forks, Walsh, Pembina, Nelson, Griggs and Cavalier in the Red River Valley North and Grand Forks; Burleigh, Morton, Oliver, Mercer, McLean, Emmons, Kidder, Sheridan, Sioux, Grant and Logan in Bismarck-Mandan and the Missouri River Corridor; Ward, McHenry, Renville, Bottineau, Pierce, Rolette, Towner, Benson and Ramsey in Minot, the Souris River Basin and the Devils Lake Basin; Williams, McKenzie, Mountrail, Divide, Burke, Dunn, Stark, Billings, Golden Valley, Slope, Bowman, Adams and Hettinger in the Bakken and the Badlands; and Stutsman, Wells, Foster, Eddy, LaMoure, Dickey and McIntosh in Jamestown and the Central Grain Belt.

MMCG Invest, LLC is a national commercial real estate feasibility consulting firm that operates from San Francisco and produces third-party feasibility studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA B&I, USDA REAP, USDA Community Facilities, and conventional loan programs across more than 30 asset classes. The firm's principal, Michal Mohelsky, is a Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute, and the firm has been cited by Forbes, The Washington Post, The Independent, Commercial Observer, DHL, and Placer.ai. MMCG delivers lender-grade feasibility studies with a contractual acceptance guarantee, a 50/50 fee schedule, and delivery in 9 to 16 business days. For North Dakota engagements spanning the Fargo-Moorhead corporate and Diversion-era growth corridor, the Bismarck-Mandan state-capital and energy-service economy, the Grand Forks base, university and UAS cluster, the Minot Sentinel modernization corridor, the Bakken production and service economy, the Ellendale and Harwood hyperscale campuses, the Spiritwood and Casselton crush and biofuel complex, and the statewide grain, oilseed, sugar, cattle, wind, coal and USDA rural pipeline, MMCG calibrates every study to the project address, the sponsor tax structure, the program of record, and the specific lender, CDC, Bank of North Dakota officer, or North Dakota Department of Commerce contact carrying the deal.

To request a proposal, use the Request Proposal form or book a 30-minute scoping call. Pricing starts at $4,900 with a 50/50 fee schedule and delivery in 9 to 16 business days.

Michal Mohelsky, J.D., | Principal | mmcginvest.com Contact: michal@mmcginvest.com Phone: (628) 225-1110

Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline, aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 loans and with 7 CFR Part 5001, Subpart D (appendix A for Business and Industry and REAP, appendix B for Community Facilities) for USDA financing. Engagements start at $4,900 with fixed-fee scoping. Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days, with rush turnaround available from 5 days. A senior analyst responds to proposal requests within 12 business hours from the firm's San Francisco office at 27 Maiden Lane, Suite 625.