Industrial Outdoor Storage Feasibility Study: Truck Terminals, Contractor Yards and Trailer Parking

A yard has little of what a lender usually relies on. Improvements are a fraction of value, so the appraisal rests on land and on income from a use that many zoning districts tolerate rather than permit. The tenant base is concentrated in trucking, construction and logistics, whose fortunes move with freight and building cycles. The rent is high per acre and low per square foot of building, which confuses underwriting models built for warehouses. And the supply is shrinking, because the sites that work for outdoor storage are also the sites that work for last-mile warehouses, housing and self-storage, and municipalities prefer any of those to trucks.

That combination is why the sector has drawn institutional capital and why lenders want a study before they follow it. The study answers the questions the appraisal cannot: whether the use is permitted and will stay permitted, what the yard will rent for and to whom, what it costs to bring the site to an institutional standard, and what the income covers. Truck stops, RV storage and boat storage are underwritten as operating businesses rather than as yards and are covered on the truck stop, RV storage and boat storage feasibility study pages, and contractor bays with fenced yards on the flex space page.

CBRE's fourth-quarter 2025 figures put industrial outdoor storage vacancy at 2.5 percent against 6.7 percent for traditional industrial space, with a rent premium of 17.9 percent that widened over the year. CompStak reports that market rents on IOS sites ran 29.8 percent above in-place rents in the first quarter of 2026, the widest spread in its industrial data, which means that leases rolling in the next two to three years reset sharply upward where the tenant has nowhere else to go. Capright's September 2026 lending update puts typical IOS leverage at 55 to 65 percent of value with debt yields of 9 to 11 percent, and spreads for stabilized core assets as low as 165 basis points over SOFR, which puts the sector's debt pricing close to conventional industrial for the best sites.

Rents are quoted per acre per month and vary with location, paving, power, access and the permitted use more than with any metro statistic, so the study builds its rent conclusion from yard-to-yard comparables within the submarket rather than from a published index, and reports each comparable's size, improvements, use and lease date.

Most of an IOS study is site work, because most of an IOS asset's risk is at the municipality. The study reads the zoning use table for the district and quotes the row that governs outdoor storage, truck terminals, equipment storage, vehicle storage and trailer parking, with the distinction between permitted, conditional and prohibited, and between accessory outdoor storage attached to a building and outdoor storage as the principal use. It reports the screening, setback, paving, lighting and stormwater standards the district imposes, the status of any nonconforming use the site relies on and what triggers its loss, the overlay districts and corridor plans that may end the use, and the record of the municipality's recent decisions on similar sites. Where the use is conditional the study lays out the approval path and its timeline.

The site section covers acreage and shape, frontage and curb cuts, the condition and type of paving, drainage and stormwater permits, fencing and lighting, power for shop and reefer use, water and sanitary service for a shop or office, truck access and turning, distance to the interstate interchange and to the ports, rail yards, distribution centers, manufacturing plants or construction corridors that generate the demand, traffic counts, flood zone with the FEMA panel, wetlands, and the environmental history of a site that has often held fuel, repair or washing operations. Where the site is unimproved land the study prices the paving, drainage, fencing, lighting and utility work needed to bring it to the standard institutional tenants pay for.

A bank financing an IOS acquisition or development tests income, debt yield and the durability of the use. The study reports in-place and market rent, lease terms and rollover, the tenant base and the demand generators behind it, operating expenses, which are low but include property tax at a land-heavy assessment, and the debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) and debt yield at the lender's floor, with sensitivities to rent, vacancy and the loss of the use.

SBA 504 and 7(a) finance a yard only where the borrower's own business occupies it, a trucking company's terminal, a contractor's equipment yard or an equipment dealer's lot, under the owner-user rules on the SBA warehouse feasibility study page, with the occupancy test applied to the yard as well as to any building on it. Real estate with little improvement value is weaker collateral, so the study documents the land value and the improvements, and a yard held to lease to other businesses is passive real estate and not an eligible SBA project.

USDA Business and Industry can guarantee a rural yard as a commercial or industrial property, whether owner-occupied or built for lease, where the site is outside a city of more than 50,000 people and its adjacent urbanized area; for a guaranteed loan of more than $1 million to a new business the Agency requires an independent feasibility study. The USDA feasibility study page covers the program.

The study establishes the site, the zoning and entitlement position, and the environmental screen in the detail above. It programs the yard, with usable acreage after setbacks, screening and circulation, the shop or office building, paving and improvement scope, and power. It measures the market from yard comparables within the submarket, the demand generators, the tenant base and lease evidence, and the competitive supply of yards and of the warehouse and industrial land that could become yards. It builds the cost table from local bids for paving, drainage, fencing, lighting and utilities, sets the capital stack under the program tested, projects income and expenses through stabilization, reports DSCR and debt yield at the lender's floors, and tests sensitivities to rent, vacancy, improvement cost and, for sites relying on a conditional or nonconforming use, the loss of the use. It states the conclusion as feasible, feasible with conditions, or not feasible, with each condition expressed as a number or an approval.

An MMCG industrial outdoor storage feasibility study is delivered in 9 to 16 business days from engagement and receipt of the project file, with rush delivery from 5 business days. Fees begin at $4,900 for a single-site owner-operator yard under SBA 7(a) or 504; investment acquisitions, developments and multi-site portfolios are quoted on scope. Payment is 50 percent at engagement and 50 percent at delivery. MMCG accepts no referral fees, contingent fees or financing arrangements, and revisions required by the lender, CDC or Agency are made at no additional cost under MMCG's contractual acceptance commitment.

Industrial Case Study 5 applies this method to a regional carrier's SBA 504 purchase of a 4.82-acre truck terminal in Macon, Georgia, with the 7(a) and conventional structures compared.