Feasibility Study Consultant in Salt Lake City, UT: SBA and USDA

A feasibility study in Salt Lake City is read by a lender or a Certified Development Company before anyone else, and the first thing that institution needs from this market is a boundary, not a number. Two boundaries, in fact, and neither of them is the metro. One is a federal air quality designation that takes in all of one county here, part of the other, and two counties that are not in this metro at all. The other is a proposed utility impact fee schedule that has not been adopted and that takes effect ninety days after a council vote, so which schedule a project pays depends on a date. This is also an unusually small metro by county count. The Census Bureau assigns two counties to it, Salt Lake and Tooele, holding 1,300,762 residents between them on the 2024 estimate, and almost all of that sits in Salt Lake County. MMCG Invest, LLC is a feasibility study company serving Salt Lake City borrowers, SBA 7(a) lenders, 504 CDCs, USDA Rural Development guaranteed lenders and the Certified Development Companies that package debentures in both counties. Reports are written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, prepared under USPAP, and built on primary sources named in the report. Fees start at $4,900 and standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days from engagement. The metro's own SBA record sets the frame. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, the ten asset classes in this record drew 549 SBA 7(a) loans for $429,577,000 and 139 SBA 504 loans for $162,352,000 inside these two counties, computed in house from the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release by county membership and never read from a district total. The full table, the lender and CDC record and the market layer are on the Salt Lake City feasibility and market research post.

The Salt Lake City-Murray, UT metro is home to about 1,300,762 residents per the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates, led by Salt Lake County at 1,216,274; Tooele County at 84,488.

The air quality boundary and the metro are different shapes. Under 40 CFR 81.345 the Environmental Protection Agency designates the Northern Wasatch Front, UT area Nonattainment for the 2015 eight-hour ozone standard, classified Moderate, with the date February 5, 2026. The regulation states that the area is made up of Davis County, Salt Lake County, part of Tooele County and part of Weber County. Set that against this metro, which is Salt Lake and Tooele. Salt Lake County is inside the nonattainment area in full. Tooele County is inside it only for the townships the regulation names, so a site elsewhere in that county may sit outside. Davis and Weber are inside the area and outside this metro entirely. Neither geography contains the other.

That matters before it matters environmentally. Nonattainment status is what puts a new or modified source of the relevant pollutants onto the stricter permitting path, and a permitting path is a schedule and a cost before it is anything else. Because the two geographies cross rather than nest, the question cannot be answered by naming the metro, and in Tooele County it cannot be answered by naming the county either. It is answered by locating the parcel against the township list the regulation prints, and MMCG makes that determination at intake and records how it was made.

The utility impact fee schedule is proposed, not adopted. In July 2026 Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities put an updated impact fee schedule out for consideration. On the water side it is a step change rather than an adjustment: the existing fee of $1,871 on a three quarter inch meter is proposed at $5,577, and the existing $3,830 on a one inch meter is proposed at $11,154. Sewer and stormwater impact fees are proposed alongside. The department states that the proposal goes before the city council, that the council will hold two hearings, and that if the council approves it the fees take effect 90 days from the approval date. None of that has happened yet, and a study that writes the proposed figures as current is wrong today and may be wrong tomorrow for a different reason. MMCG states which schedule a projection has used and what would move it to the other.

Meter size is the decision underneath the fee. Both the current and the proposed water schedules are set by meter size, so the sizing decision and the impact fee decision are one decision made twice. For a car wash, a hotel laundry or a restaurant kitchen, the meter is sized for peak demand, and that sizing is what the fee schedule reads. The water context belongs beside it: the department has the entire Public Utilities service area under a Stage 2, or mild, Water Shortage Advisory, calling for a reduction of 10 million gallons of water per day.

Commercial property is assessed at full value here. The Salt Lake County Assessor states that figuring ad valorem taxes requires the taxable market value, the assessment ratio at 55% of market value for Residential property and 100% for all others, any exemptions, and the tax rate for the area of the county. A commercial asset therefore carries its whole market value into the tax base where a house carries a little over half, which is a Utah rule rather than a Salt Lake rule and is set out in full on the Utah feasibility study page.

And the market layer is one figure, named and qualified. Cushman and Wakefield put overall industrial vacancy in the Salt Lake City market at 7.9 percent in its MarketBeat for the first quarter of 2026. That is an industrial figure, and most of this metro's SBA borrowers are not building industrial space, so it describes the stock a broker tracks rather than the asset class in front of the lender. The rest is on the research post.

An SBA 504 feasibility study in the Salt Lake City metro is written for two readers at once: the Certified Development Company that packages the debenture and the third party lender that holds the first lien. Both underwrite under SBA SOP 50 10 8, and whether a study is required on a given file is their call rather than this firm's. What MMCG supplies is the document those two readers can check line by line, with every figure traceable to a source they can open themselves.

This is a 504 heavy metro relative to its size. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed the ten asset classes in this record drew $162,352,000 of 504 money against $429,577,000 of 7(a), and in fiscal year 2025 the metro recorded 83 504 approvals for $102,231,000, up from 55 approvals for $63,290,000 in fiscal 2024. On the 7(a) side fiscal 2025 brought 510 approvals for $273,530,300, up from 487 approvals for $248,332,600. A 504 file here is written into a real comparable set rather than a thin one. The per lender and per CDC detail is on the research post. See also the SBA 504 feasibility study and SBA 7(a) feasibility study pages for what each program asks the study to answer.

USDA Business and Industry and Community Facilities credit runs on a statutory geography, not a county line. Under 7 U.S.C. 1991(a)(13)(A) the terms rural and rural area mean any area other than a city or town that has a population of greater than 50,000 inhabitants and any urbanized area contiguous and adjacent to such a city or town. The Salt Lake City urbanized core is therefore out. What remains in this metro is the outer parts of the member counties, beyond the urbanized area that runs with Salt Lake City and Murray.

Because the test turns on the subject address and the urbanized area boundary around it rather than on the name of the town, MMCG verifies eligibility at the address on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map at intake, before any work on the study begins, and no town is named on this page as eligible on a model's say so. Where the address qualifies, the study is written to the 7 CFR Part 5001 standard that USDA Rural Development and its guaranteed lenders apply. One note specific to this metro travels with that check: a USDA eligible parcel in Tooele County may still sit inside the ozone nonattainment area, or outside it, depending on the township, and a parcel outside Salt Lake City's utility service area answers the impact fee question to a different provider. The two determinations are made separately and stated separately. See the USDA feasibility study page for the program frame.

A hotel feasibility study Salt Lake City lenders can underwrite starts from the metro's own SBA record, and in this metro that record sits meaningfully on the 504 side. Across fiscal years 2010 to 2026 disbursed, hotels and motels in the Salt Lake City MSA drew 31 SBA 7(a) loans for $77,096,300 and 20 SBA 504 loans for $48,904,000, with both cohorts under 30 resolved loans and therefore too small for a charge-off rate to be shown. The study says that plainly rather than filling the gap with a national average.

Two local lines shape the capital budget rather than the operating statement. A hotel sizes its water meter for laundry and peak occupancy, which is exactly what both the current and the proposed impact fee schedules read, and the proposed water fee on a one inch meter is $11,154 against an existing $3,830. And the property tax line is set against an assessment ratio of 100% for a commercial asset, not the 55% a residential comparison would carry. Neither belongs in the room rate assumption, and both belong in the cost to build and to hold. See the hotel feasibility study page for the rest of the method.

These are the points a Salt Lake City underwriter checks first. Each traces to a government publisher or to the SBA's own file, and the one market figure on this page names its publisher, its quarter and its asset class.

An engagement begins with three things: the project address, the asset class, and the name of the lender or CDC contact who will read the report. At intake the address is located against the township list that 40 CFR 81.345 prints for the nonattainment area, checked against the Salt Lake City Public Utilities service area and the impact fee schedule in force on the expected permit date, and checked on the USDA Rural Development eligibility map. MMCG sends a first response within 12 business hours. Fees start at $4,900. Standard delivery runs 9 to 16 business days from engagement, and a rush track at 5 business days is available when a loan committee date or a purchase contract deadline requires it.

The report that follows names its sources the way this page does. Air quality designations come from the Code of Federal Regulations. Utility fees and the water advisory come from Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities. The assessment ratio comes from the Salt Lake County Assessor. Population comes from the Census Bureau. The SBA record is computed in house from the 7(a) and 504 FOIA release by county membership. Where a market figure is carried it names its publisher and its period. For the statewide frame see the Utah feasibility study page, and for the full list of markets see the feasibility study index.

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 Salt Lake City among the markets it covers. The practice is led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Reports are prepared under USPAP, written to SBA SOP 50 10 8 for 7(a) and 504 files and to 7 CFR Part 5001 for USDA files, and built on primary sources named in each report: the Code of Federal Regulations, city and county publications, federal survey and Census records and the SBA's 7(a) and 504 FOIA release, from which every metro lending figure is computed in house by county membership. Every figure on this page names its source, and each report names its sources the same way.