Marina Feasibility Study for SBA, USDA and Bank Loans

A marina feasibility study is the document a lender, CDC or USDA reviewer uses to decide whether a proposed, expanded, acquired or rebuilt marina, dry-stack storage facility or boatyard can carry its debt. MMCG Invest prepares lender-grade marina studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504, USDA Business and Industry and conventional financing, built on a boating market measured from vessel registrations and slip supply, a competitive census verified slip by slip, a revenue projection classified line by line against the SBA transient rule, a project cost tested against public bid records, a tenure analysis of the submerged-lands lease or concession the collateral sits on, and a debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) schedule run through the floor the program actually applies: 1.15 times on a standard 7(a) loan, 1.10 times on a 7(a) Small loan, 1.15 times historical on a 504 loan, and 1.25 times historical on an acquisition under Appendix 15 of SOP 50 10 8.1.

A marina feasibility study is an independent, third-party analysis of whether a specific waterfront facility at a specific site can reach the occupancy, rate, fuel volume and service revenue needed to service a specific loan. It is distinct from an appraisal, which concludes a value, from a business valuation, which concludes a price, and from an engineer's condition survey, which reports what the docks will cost to replace. The feasibility study concludes whether the capital stack works at this basin, on this lease, under this program.

Marinas are not one lending situation. They are four, and the study is written for the one in front of the lender.

The first is the new facility: a ground-up dry-stack storage building on the Gulf Coast, a new wet-slip basin behind a breakwater, an expansion that adds fifty covered slips to a reservoir concession. The borrower has no operating history at the site and the file rests on projections. SBA defines a New Business as one operating two years or less, and the 504 program raises the borrower contribution to 15 percent for one, and to 20 percent when the project is also limited or single purpose property, which SBA's example list says a marina is. Here the study builds the projection from registrations, slip supply and posted rates, and tests it against the one rule that decides eligibility before DSCR is ever computed. See the dry-stack boat storage feasibility study and coastal marina feasibility study pages.

The second is the acquisition of an existing marina, which SOP 50 10 8.1 sorts into Appendix 15 and tests on historical debt service coverage at 1.25 times. Here the study normalizes the seller's revenue by line, separates transient from annual dockage, documents the fuel system and the lease, and explains the history rather than replacing it with a forecast. See the marina acquisition feasibility study page.

The third is the rural project financed under USDA Business and Industry: the concession marina on a Corps of Engineers lake, the lake resort with slips, rentals and a store, the river landing in a county under 50,000 people. The regulation names a feasibility study as a requirement for any guaranteed loan above $1 million to a new business, and the equity test is stricter than SBA's. See the lake and river marina feasibility study page and the USDA feasibility study page.

The fourth is the private operator on public water: the marina on a state submerged-lands lease, a Corps concession, a port district ground lease or a municipal concession agreement. The public owner cannot borrow from SBA at all, and the operator can borrow only if the tenure instrument runs longer than the loan and can be assigned to the lender. See the public and municipal marina feasibility study and boatyard and service yard feasibility study pages.

Two routing rules apply before any of this. The first is SBA's marina rule. Under SOP 50 10 8.1 a marina is a rental business that is eligible only if more than 50 percent of the business's revenue for the prior year comes from transients who stay 30 days or less at a time, and a start-up must show the same thing in its projections. Most marinas earn most of their dockage from annual and seasonal contracts, so the rule, not the coverage ratio, is the first test a marina study runs. The second rule concerns the water. Floating docks, piers and boat storage over water are not insurable under the National Flood Insurance Program, a marina inside a Coastal Barrier Resources System unit is ineligible for SBA financing, and every marina loan, whatever its size, requires a Phase I environmental site assessment because NAICS 713930 is on SBA's list of environmentally sensitive industries and because fuel is dispensed at the dock. The study settles both rules at scoping, because they decide whether there is a file to write.

No federal regulation makes a marina study automatic. Under 13 CFR 120.160(b), SBA may require a feasibility study, and SOP 50 10 8.1, in force for applications received on or after October 1, 2026, leaves the decision with the lender or CDC. Lenders request one when the file rests on projections: a ground-up dry-stack building, a basin expansion, a second location without the first's history, an acquisition where the buyer will change the revenue mix, or any file where the sponsor's pro forma sits above the posted rates and occupancy of the marinas around it. Under SOP 50 10 8.1 an acquisition with continuity of operations cannot use projections to meet the 1.25 times floor at all, so the study's role on those files is to establish and defend the historical number and, for a marina, to prove which revenue lines are transient.

USDA is explicit. Under 7 CFR 5001.306(a)(3)(i), a Business and Industry guaranteed loan above $1,000,000 to a new business requires an independent feasibility study prepared by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency, to the components in Appendix A to Subpart D of Part 5001, with projections that run at least two years past full operational capacity. The Agency may require one below that amount, and 7 CFR 5001.303(c)(4) says any study should be prepared by a qualified, independent third party.

Neither agency keeps an approved list of preparers. Acceptability is decided file by file, by the lender for SBA and by the Agency for USDA. MMCG prepares its marina studies to the standard of an independent qualified consultant under 7 CFR 5001.3 and to the underwriting expectations of SBA lenders and CDCs, and it states that standard rather than claiming a qualification no agency confers.

The reader is a credit officer, an SBA district office, a CDC loan committee or a USDA state office. The study is written for that reader, not for the borrower, and MMCG accepts no referral fees, contingent fees or financing arrangements that would compromise that position. The method is set out in full in MMCG's feasibility study methodology.

The marina lender's numbers moved on October 1, 2026. SOP 50 10 8.1 and its Technical Policy Updates took effect for applications received on or after that date under Information Notice 5000-882227. The prime rate stood at 7.00 percent in October 2026 and the SBA optional peg rate at 5.00 percent for the quarter, so the maximum variable rate on a 7(a) loan above $350,000 is 10.00 percent, Prime plus 3.0 percent, under the spread table in Procedural Notice 5000-875051. The 504 debenture priced on October 8, 2026 at an effective rate of 6.97 percent on the 25-year and 20-year terms and 6.59 percent on the 10-year, with the rural, manufacturing and food supply chain waiver bringing the 25-year to 6.74 percent.

Fiscal 2027 fees are set by Information Notice 5000-881797 for 7(a) and 5000-881796 for 504. The 7(a) upfront guaranty fee is 2 percent on loans of $150,000 or less, 3 percent from $150,001 to $700,000, and 3.5 percent on the guaranteed portion up to $1 million plus 3.75 percent above that on loans from $700,001 to $5 million, with a 0.55 percent annual service fee. The upfront fee is waived on loans of $700,000 or less to businesses in rural counties, which the notice defines as counties the Census Bureau classes as at least 30 percent rural. The 504 upfront fee is 0.50 percent and the annual fee 0.203 percent, both waived for the same rural, manufacturing and food supply chain borrowers. For a reservoir marina, a river landing or a coastal yard outside a metropolitan county, the rural waiver is real money on the working capital and equipment pieces, and the study states whether the county qualifies.

The combined limit changed in July. Under Policy Notice 5000-879058, effective July 4, 2026, a borrower that secures a 7(a) loan first may hold up to $5 million in 7(a) and up to $5 million in 504 at the same time, $10 million combined. That matters for the marina acquisition that splits the business onto 7(a) and the real estate onto 504, and the ordering rule is written into the capital stack.

USDA's fiscal 2026 terms remain the published terms. Under 91 FR 11272, a Business and Industry guarantee under $5 million carries an 85 percent guarantee, a 3.0 percent initial fee and a 0.55 percent annual retention fee, and loans from $5 million to $25 million carry 80 percent. As of October 9, 2026 no fiscal 2027 OneRD notice had been published in the Federal Register and USDA's program page still stated the fiscal 2026 terms, so the study carries them labeled as fiscal 2026 until superseded.

Marinas are an SBA-eligible business, but they are eligible by exception. SBA's passive-business rule at 13 CFR 120.110(c) excludes developers and landlords that do not actively use the assets they finance, and SOP 50 10 8.1 lists the narrow circumstances in which a renting or leasing business qualifies. Hotels, motels, recreational vehicle parks, marinas, campgrounds and similar businesses are on that list, and the condition attached to them is the transient test described above: more than 50 percent of the prior year's revenue from transients staying 30 days or less, or projections showing the same for a start-up, plus compliance with zoning and all other legal requirements. The paragraph sits in Section A, Chapter 1, Paragraph E.3 of SOP 50 10 8, and SBA Form 2234 for 504 loans asks the same question in slightly different words, 50 percent or more of gross annual income from transients staying no more than 30 days, with the instruction that a "No" answer makes the loan ineligible.

The public evidence on how marinas actually earn their money is uncomfortable for that test. Sun Communities' marina segment, which was Safe Harbor until its $5.65 billion sale to Blackstone Infrastructure in April 2025, reported $27.7 million of transient revenue on $460.3 million of real property operating revenue in fiscal 2024, 6.0 percent, and in fiscal 2022 transient revenue was about 2.5 percent of total marina revenue including service, retail and dining. Safe Harbor's own 2019 disclosure said 93 percent of wet slip rental income was annual or seasonal. Elmwood Township's Great Lakes municipal marina earned $105,805 of transient revenue against $580,209 of seasonal slip revenue in 2022, about 15 percent of dockage. A 2004 Maryland Sea Grant survey found 403 of 3,928 sampled Chesapeake slips, 10.3 percent, generally available to transients. The Port of Edmonds budgeted guest moorage at $267,000 of $9,454,000 in marina revenue for 2026, 2.8 percent. No public source found in MMCG's research shows a typical marina anywhere near 50 percent transient revenue on a nightly or weekly definition.

What the SOP does not say is which revenue lines count. It tests "the business's revenue" against revenue "derived from transients," and it is silent on whether fuel sold to a seasonal tenant, a month-to-month rack contract, a boat rental or a boat club membership is transient. MMCG's research found no SBA interpretive guidance, Office of Hearings and Appeals decision, Inspector General audit or procedural notice that resolves the question for marinas, and it treats the rule as a written question for the lender and, through the lender, for SBA's Office of Financial Assistance. The study therefore classifies every revenue line by stay length and by source, reports the share on each reading, and states plainly which reading the determination rests on. A dry-stack facility that bills month to month, a transient destination harbor, or a rental-heavy reservoir marina can approach the line. A wet-slip marina on annual contracts cannot, and the honest study says so and routes the file to USDA Business and Industry or conventional credit.

Three further rules apply to every marina file. Marinas are on SBA's list of limited or single purpose property examples, with bowling alleys, car washes, golf courses, hotels and similar, which puts the 504 contribution at 15 percent and at 20 percent for a borrower operating two years or less. Government-owned marinas, including municipal and port district marinas, are ineligible under 13 CFR 120.110(j), as are nonprofit yacht and boat clubs under 120.110(a). And a marina with a fuel dock is an environmentally sensitive business twice over: NAICS 713930 appears on SOP Appendix 6, which requires a Phase I regardless of loan amount, and the appendix separately requires a Phase I for any business that sells, supplies or dispenses fuel.

The published loan record is thin. SBA's FOIA loan files on data.sba.gov code marina loans to NAICS 713930, and MMCG's tabulation of that series for marinas is in preparation; this page does not report counts it has not yet verified. The precedents that are public are CDC releases: Florida First Capital's 504 financing of a 30-slip marina purchase with a fuel dock, TMC Financing's 504 refinance of Alameda Marina in California, and the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic CDCs that list marine facility acquisition as an eligible 504 use. None of them is a ground-up dry-stack facility or a start-up, and the study says so when it is asked to compare.

SOP 50 10 8.1 governs every 7(a) and 504 marina loan numbered on or after October 1, 2026. The rules below are the ones the marina study is written to, and they are cited to the SBA regulatory spine where that page carries the full text.

The transient rule is the gate, and it is applied to the operating business. In an owner-operator structure that is the borrower. In an Eligible Passive Company structure the EPC holds the real estate and the submerged-lands lease and leases the whole of it to an Operating Company that runs the slips, the fuel dock, the store and the yard; the OC is a co-borrower or guarantor, the lease runs at least the loan term counting only options the OC alone can exercise, the rent is capped at debt service plus direct holding costs, and the test is applied to the OC's revenue. A marina run under a third-party management agreement that gives the manager sole discretion is an ineligible passive business under Section A, Chapter 1 of the SOP, so the borrower must approve the budget and major expenditures, control the bank accounts and employ the staff.

Occupancy is measured on the water as well as the land. Under 13 CFR 120.131 the borrower must occupy at least 51 percent of an existing building and 60 percent of new construction, and SOP 50 10 8 at Section A, Chapter 3, Paragraph C.1 says Rentable Property includes exterior space actively used in the business and gives "boat slips and docks for marinas" as the example. Slip and rack customers are the marina's customers, not tenants, so they do not reduce occupancy; a restaurant, broker or dealer leasing space from the marina does.

Acquisitions follow Appendix 15. An Initial Acquisition is tested on the last fiscal year or the two-year average at 1.25 times, and projections cannot cure a shortfall except where the loan is secured by owner-occupied special use property and the lender documents that historical information cannot be obtained or the appraisal fully secures the loan, or where there is no continuity of operations and the lender underwrites the deal as a start-up. The 10 percent equity injection on an Initial Acquisition cannot be reduced, and seller debt on full standby, other standby debt and minority investor equity together may provide no more than half of it. A change-of-ownership loan amortizes over no more than 10 years unless special use property real estate is 85 percent or more of value, in which case the whole loan may run 25 years; a marina with assessed land and site improvements at the 77 percent average MMCG measured on six Anne Arundel County marinas sits below that line, and the study tests the allocation before it assumes the term. An independent valuation is required on every change of ownership. A Quality of Earnings report is required when the business purchase price net of owner-occupied real estate is $3 million or more. Seller consulting may run 24 months. Earnouts are prohibited. MMCG's own analysis of the acquisition rules is in SBA Stopped Lending on Projections: SOP 50 10 8.1 Closes Acquisition Loans on Last Year's Numbers.

Leasehold collateral has its own chapter. Under Section A, Chapter 3, Paragraph C.2 of SOP 50 10 8, where the lesser of $500,000 or 30 percent of loan proceeds goes to leasehold improvements, or the lesser of $500,000 or 30 percent of collateral is leasehold improvements, fixtures or attached equipment, the lender must obtain the written lease; the term including borrower-only options should equal or exceed the loan term for 7(a) and must do so for 504; and the lender should obtain an assignment of lease and a landlord's waiver, failing which the term must equal or exceed the loan in both programs and the attempt must be documented. A ground lease must give the tenant the right to encumber, bar amendment or cancellation without lender approval, give the lender the right to acquire and reassign the leasehold and to sublease, give the lender its share of insurance and condemnation proceeds, and state the lender's rights on default. The SOP says nothing specific about state-owned submerged land, tidelands, Corps of Engineers or TVA reservoir concessions, port district leases or riparian rights. Whether a particular state lease or federal concession can satisfy the ground lease clauses is a question for lender counsel on the actual instrument, and the study's tenure section is written to give counsel what it needs.

Coastal Barrier Resources and flood are hard limits. Under 16 U.S.C. 3502(3), "financial assistance" includes any loan or guaranty, so an SBA guaranty inside a Coastal Barrier Resources System unit is barred, and Section A, Chapter 1, Paragraph E.20 of the SOP lists businesses located within the System as ineligible. Otherwise Protected Areas restrict only federal flood insurance. The National Flood Insurance Program insures buildings with two or more rigid walls and a roof affixed to a permanent site; it does not insure boat repair docks or boat storage over water, and decks, piers and docks outside the building are not covered. Flood coverage on the upland building in a Special Flood Hazard Area is mandatory; coverage on the docks must come from the private market, and the study prices it.

Environmental review starts with a Phase I. SOP Appendix 6 lists NAICS 71393 Marinas among the environmentally sensitive industries for which the investigation must begin with a Phase I regardless of loan amount, and adds that a Phase I should always be obtained if the business sells, supplies or dispenses fuel. Underground tanks at the fuel dock bring 40 CFR Part 280 and the state tank program; above-ground tanks above the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure threshold bring 40 CFR Part 112; a boatyard brings the industrial stormwater permit and the wash-water question. Whether Appendix 7, written for gasoline stations, is applied to a marine fuel dock is a lender-counsel question MMCG has not seen SBA answer in writing, and the study budgets as though it will be.

A privately owned, for-profit marina is an eligible Business and Industry borrower. 7 CFR 5001.105(b)(8) names tourist and recreation facilities operated as a public or private commercial enterprise, and a marina fits the category. The rural area test at 5001.3 excludes any city or town over 50,000 people and the urbanized area contiguous to it, with the rural-in-character exceptions, and the eligibility map is checked parcel by parcel. The exclusion at 5001.115(b) reaches publicly owned or nonprofit amusement parks, water parks and similar recreational facilities inherently commercial in nature; it does not reach a private for-profit marina, but it is a live risk for a municipal or nonprofit marina seeking Community Facilities money. Three other clauses bite on marina structures: 5001.115(g) excludes primarily commercial rental property where the borrower has no control over tenants and services, which is where a slip condominium or dockominium regime lands; 5001.118(a) excludes timeshares and residential housing, which reaches liveaboard-led and membership-interval models; and 5001.105(b)(13) permits mixed use only where at least 50 percent of projected revenue comes from business use. Leasehold improvements are eligible only where the lease term is at least the loan term and carries no impairing reverter, under 5001.105(b)(14), which is the clause that decides the Corps concession marina.

The equity rules are stricter than SBA's. Under 5001.105(d) a new business must show at least 20 percent balance sheet equity, and 25 percent balance sheet equity where the guarantee is issued before construction is complete. The maximum term is 40 years, the useful life of the collateral, or the state statutory limit, whichever is less, with no balloons; the regulation defines DSCR at 5001.3 as EBITDA less reasonably expected replacement capital expenditures divided by annual debt service, sets no floor for a new loan, and requires 1.1 times historical coverage on a refinancing-majority loan to an existing business. In practice the lender's covenant governs, and MMCG models rural marinas to the 1.25 times floor lenders apply to SBA acquisitions unless the lender states another.

The feasibility study is mandatory above $1 million to a new business. Under 5001.306(a)(3)(i) the study must be prepared by an independent qualified consultant acceptable to the Agency to the components in Appendix A to Subpart D, which are the economic, market, technical, financial and management feasibility sections this page describes. For a reservoir marina the technical section carries the lease, the flotation rules and the lake-level record, and the financial section carries the Corps rent at the graduated gross-receipts scale.

Community Facilities and REAP play supporting roles. Community Facilities at 5001.103(a) lists ports and community parks among eligible facilities, requires public use, and caps leased space to ineligible commercial uses at 25 percent of floor area, so a municipal marina framed as a port or public access facility has a path while one framed as a recreational facility runs into 5001.115(b). REAP can finance a rooftop solar array on a dry-stack building for a rural for-profit marina that meets the SBA size standard, with 25 percent matching funds on a guaranteed loan, under technical reports in 5001.307(e) and Appendices C to E, but the 2026 suspension and rule changes mean the study leaves REAP out of the base capital stack. See the USDA feasibility study page and the USDA regulatory spine.

One correction to the site's own boilerplate belongs here. Appendix A to Subpart D of Part 5001 is the feasibility study appendix for Business and Industry and for the general provision at 5001.303(c)(4). Community Facilities financial feasibility reports follow Appendix B, and REAP technical reports follow 5001.307(e) and Appendices C to E. Where this site says a study is prepared to Appendix A, it means the B&I standard, and the engagement letter names the appendix that applies to the program in front of the lender.

The marina study starts with the fleet, not the site. The Coast Guard counted 11,674,073 registered recreational vessels in 2024, up 1.1 percent from 11,546,512 in 2023 and down from 11,770,383 in 2022, in its Recreational Boating Statistics released June 24, 2025. NMMA reported 231,576 new powerboats sold at retail in calendar 2024, down 9.1 percent, and the rolling twelve months to April 2026 at 214,292 units, down 7.1 percent, with pontoons and saltwater fishing boats falling fastest and freshwater fishing boats flat. Florida alone registered about 1.2 million boats in 2024, a tenth of the fleet, and the Great Lakes states hold nearly a quarter of it. The fleet is flat to slowly shrinking in count and growing in length and value: MarineMax reported a fiscal 2025 average new boat price of about $339,000 against an industry average of about $93,000, and Washington's registrations of boats over 50 feet grew 2.8 percent a year from 2000 to 2020 while the 26 to 40 foot classes were flat.

That length shift is the marina thesis. Washington's marina analysis found that 30 foot and larger slips are generally full across Puget Sound while slips under 30 feet see off-peak vacancies, that marina length overall averaged 10 percent more than registered hull length, and that a reconfiguration of the Des Moines marina would cut slip count by about 30 percent but linear feet by only about 12 percent. Safe Harbor told investors in 2023 that about 89 percent of its marinas carried a waitlist, 81 percent of them coastal, and showed a 2014 to 2019 fleet growth rate rising with every length class from 0.8 percent a year for 17 to 30 foot boats to 5.7 percent for 80 feet and over, against a US marina count falling 0.6 percent a year from 2004 to 2016. The study measures the subject's slip-length mix against the county's registration mix by length class, and the finding that drives most marina determinations is a shortage of long slips beside a surplus of short ones.

The industry's own size is contested, and the study says which count it uses. The Census Bureau's Service Annual Survey put revenue for employer marinas in NAICS 71393 at $6.42 billion in 2022, up from $4.93 billion in 2018, and the 2017 Economic Census counted 27,796 paid employees on $4.24 billion of revenue. Sun Communities cited about 4,000 Census establishments and a top-five operator share of about 4 percent in 2020. IBISWorld and VerticalIQ count about 3,400 employer businesses. Older trade estimates of 10,000 to 12,000 facilities include municipal docks, yacht clubs and nonemployer operations. MMCG cites the Census establishment count with its year and labels the larger figures as trade estimates. The Association of Marina Industries reports 295,345 slips across about 1,200 member marinas, and no primary count of US slips exists.

Consolidation set the price of a slip. Sun Communities bought Safe Harbor in September 2020 for $2.11 billion with 101 marinas, about 30,000 wet slips and 8,300 dry racks, roughly $52,000 per space, and sold it to Blackstone Infrastructure on April 30, 2025 for $5.65 billion with 138 marinas and 48,760 wet slips and dry storage spaces, roughly $115,900 per space and about 21 times estimated 2024 funds from operations by Sun's own description. On fiscal 2024 real property NOI of $290.1 million the price implies a yield of about 5.1 percent before service income and overhead, a portfolio figure the study never uses as an exit cap rate for a single SBA-sized marina. MarineMax bought IGY Marinas in October 2022 for $480 million plus an earnout of up to $100 million, and Stonepeak recapitalized Southern Marinas' 16 marinas and more than 6,700 slips in April 2026 at a value the Financial Times reported at $700 million to $800 million. At the other end, Baltimore's 278-slip Harborview Marina sold at foreclosure in May 2025 for $2.9 million, about $10,400 a slip, after its fixed pier was closed for safety. Price per slip runs from $10,000 to above $125,000 in the public record, which is why the study values a marina on income and never on a per-slip rule of thumb.

The competitive census is built from posted rate schedules, and the study distinguishes the municipal, port and state park schedules it can cite as public records from the private asking rates it reports as posted. MMCG's October 2026 panel of 24 marinas across nine regions shows how wide the spread is. Annual or long-term wet slips priced per foot per month ran from about $4.80 to $7.86 on Table Rock Lake in the Ozarks, $6.50 on the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal in Virginia, $8.63 at Gulfport and $16.00 to $18.00 at Vero Beach on Florida's municipal schedules, $10.20 to $13.17 at the Kitsap County ports of Poulsbo and Bremerton before Washington's 12.84 percent leasehold excise tax, $16.33 to $27.85 at Shilshole Bay under the Port of Seattle's 2026 tariff, $21.00 in Charleston, and $27.50 at the City of Miami's Dinner Key schedule effective November 1, 2025. Great Lakes and New England marinas price by the season: Wisconsin's municipal harbors at $62 to $166 per foot for a May to October season, Cape Cod towns at $140 to $210, and Michigan's state harbors at $770 to $2,420 for a 20-foot seasonal slip across ten rate tiers in 2026. Havre de Grace on the upper Chesapeake charges $72 per foot per year in 2026, up from $68 in 2024, and its marina commission warned that further increases would send tenants to marinas with floating docks and gates.

Transient rates run far above the contract rate per night. Annapolis City Dock charges $3.00 per foot per night on weekdays and $4.00 on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays; Miami $7.00; Shilshole $2.50 to $3.58 by length; Wisconsin's Lake Michigan harbors $1.80 to $3.50; Table Rock marinas $30 to $40 a night flat. Against the per-night equivalent of the annual rate, the transient premium runs 3.0 to 7.6 times across the panel, which is why a marina that can fill transient slips earns more per linear foot than one that cannot, and why the transient rule rewards the destination harbor and penalizes the home port.

Dry-stack rates are the thinnest public data. Virginia and South Carolina yards post $8.50 to $22.00 per foot per month for rack storage with unlimited launches bundled; Vero Beach's new municipal boat barn, opened in 2026 with 120 racks for boats to 33 feet, was reported at $20 to $30 per foot per month by vessel size with half its capacity reserved before opening; Sarasota's posted rack rates run $27 for a prepaid year to $30 month to month. In Lee County, Florida, the deepest dry-stack market on the Gulf Coast, no operator posts a per-foot rate at all, and the study obtains quotes and labels them.

Occupancy is read from waitlists, because almost no operator publishes it. Sun Communities reported marina occupancy as not applicable. The Des Moines, Washington study modeled new slips at a 90 percent cap. Edmonds budgets 3 percent vacancy. Annapolis City Marina posts "All Slips Filled" for boats 41 feet and over, Cape Fair on Table Rock says it is full, Anacortes Marina's waitlist is closed for 44 to 60 foot slips and open for 32 to 40 feet, and private Kitsap marinas offer the first month free. The study reads those signals by length class and sets stabilized occupancy at 90 percent unless the subject's own waitlist proves higher.

Anne Arundel County, Maryland shows what a county census looks like when the county publishes one: 303 marinas and 12,035 slips in June 2018, of which 132 commercial marinas held 7,066 slips, up from 57 marinas and 1,767 slips in 1980, while Maryland's registered fleet fell about 18 percent from its 2005 peak of 208,000 to 2018. Supply grew for four decades into a shrinking fleet. The determination in that market turns on location and boat size, not on registration growth, and the study says so.

The marina projection is built line by line because the eligibility test is applied line by line. The study models transient nightly and weekly dockage; monthly, seasonal and annual slip contracts; dry-stack and rack storage; winter and off-season land storage; fuel; service, haul-out and repair; ship store and retail; rentals, livery and club income; food, beverage and events; and the electric, pumpout, parking and environmental fees that the panel shows at $5 to $15 per slip per month. Each line carries its stay length, its source and its seasonality.

The institutional benchmarks set the shape. Safe Harbor's 2019 gross profit came 68 percent from storage, 6 percent from commercial leases, 12 percent from service, 4 percent from fuel, 2 percent from boat and cabin rentals and 7 percent from other fees. Sun's fiscal 2024 real property revenue was $9,440 per wet slip or dry space, with property operating expenses at 37 percent of revenue and a real property NOI margin of 63 percent before service businesses and overhead; in fiscal 2022 the service, retail, dining and entertainment lines earned about $402 million on an implied margin of about 11 percent, and total marina NOI including service ran about 38 percent of total revenue. Fuel earned 12 to 17 percent of revenue at the Port of Edmonds and the City of Sacramento marina fund on gross margins of 20 to 38 percent; Edmonds budgets fuel cost at 80 percent of sales and card fees at 2 percent for 2026.

The expense structure of a single-asset marina is heavier than the institutional margin. Edmonds budgets 2026 salaries, benefits and payroll taxes at 29.6 percent of marina revenue, insurance at 3.8 percent after a 10 percent increase, utilities at 2.9 percent and repair and maintenance at 9.3 percent, and Elmwood Township's operating costs grew at a 9.7 percent compound rate. Safe Harbor ran about 1,600 property-level staff across 101 marinas in 2020, about 5.3 per 100 wet slips in a full-service mix. Risk Strategies forecast marina and marine business insurance premiums rising 12 to 18 percent a year into 2025, and the study escalates the quote it obtains rather than carrying a national average that does not exist. MMCG models an independent coastal marina at a real property NOI margin in the mid-fifties, labeled as its own judgment, and tests the determination at the institutional 63 percent and at the 38 percent that applies once a service yard is added.

Seasonality decides the cash trough. Great Lakes and New England marinas collect most slip revenue as a prepaid spring season fee, with Havre de Grace taking a 50 percent deposit by December 1 and the balance by February 1, while expenses run twelve months; Safe Harbor's 2024 real property NOI fell in quarters of $56.9 million, $77.7 million, $85.1 million and $70.4 million; Table Rock concessions must keep 72 hours a week from Memorial Day to Labor Day and far less in the shoulders. The study models DSCR annually and cash monthly, and sizes the Seasonal CAPLine or reserve to the winter.

Dry-stack is the simplest revenue model and the most exposed to the transient question. Rack rent by boat length, launch service bundled or billed, fuel and a ship store make up the whole of it. Rack density is documented at about 157 to 251 square feet of building per rack across Florida and Washington projects, maximum boat lengths at 30 to 45 feet, and rack levels at two to four; launches per rack, the figure that sizes the forklift fleet and the labor line, is not published anywhere MMCG found and is carried as a flagged assumption from the operator's own logs.

Marina costs are documented in public bid records, grant budgets and port capital plans, and the study builds its cost table from them before it accepts a contractor's number. In-water slip construction and replacement ran from about $49,600 per slip at Ludington, Michigan in 2025 to about $100,000 at Berkeley, California, where the Dutra Group's $7,812,000 low bid for 79 concrete floating slips on concrete piles with gangways, utilities and fire suppression came in 18 percent over the engineer's $6.6 million estimate in March 2024, and to about $175,000 at Bristol, Pennsylvania in a 2025 Boating Infrastructure Grant budget. Transient side-tie dock budgets in the same grant round ran $996 to $4,719 per linear foot. Sarasota's 2026 marina seawall replacement came to about $3,700 per linear foot all in; residential canal bulkheads in Maryland run $365 to $425 per foot and port combi-walls above $20,000, which is why the study prices the bulkhead by its class. The one public floating wave attenuator record, Oregon's Cove Palisades supply contract, prices HDPE attenuator at $504 to $866 per foot for materials alone; Port Orchard's breakwater replacement is estimated at $17 million to $20 million and every 2026 bid was rejected.

Dredging is priced by volume and the owner pays for the basin. Federal channel maintenance on the Great Lakes ran about $5.60 to $9.29 per cubic yard at 49,000 to 232,000 cubic yards in 2020 and $35 to $57 per cubic yard at Fairport and Conneaut in 2025 with upland processing; small basins ran $42 to $54 per cubic yard at 15,000 to 65,000 cubic yards. The Corps dredges only the federal channel. Florida charges a $1.25 per cubic yard severance fee for sovereignty material. Berkeley budgeted $7.7 million for its maintenance dredging with beneficial reuse, and Elmwood Township's harbor is on a 75-year federal dredging cycle while the private basin was last dredged in 2001.

A dry-stack building is priced per rack. Vero Beach awarded a $5.9 million contract, the lowest of six bids, for a 120-rack, 21,355 square foot building for boats to 33 feet with a 20,000-pound forklift and racks sprinklered individually, about $49,000 per rack and $276 per square foot, with about $6.4 million for the upland portion including site work and about $9.5 million for the phase including docks. A 300-rack Gulf Coast facility scaled from that single benchmark runs about $14.7 million to $16.0 million in building and upland work before land, marine works, fuel system, forklifts, soft costs and contingency, and plausibly above $22 million all in, which is more than four times the $5.5 million 504 debenture cap and the reason the study models the project in phases.

Fuel systems and lifts are priced from the ports that publish their contracts. The Port of Everett paid $2 million in 2022 to replace its upland tanks with two 30,000-gallon underground tanks, the first phase of an $8.1 million fuel dock program; Mackinaw City replaced a marina tank for $358,575; Alpena bought two stainless dispensers and a console for $28,362; a 500-foot fuel dock with attendant and concession buildings completed the Everett program. No public purchase record prices a new 75-ton travel lift, and the best anchors are the fiscal 2026 MARAD Small Shipyard grants of $750,000 and $763,401 toward 75-ton lifts, which at the program's 75 percent cost cap imply projects of at least $1.0 million each; used 75-ton lifts are listed at $110,000 to $290,000, and Port Townsend paid $3.09 million for a large variable-width lift in 2025. Wash-water recycling equipment for a boatyard is about $35,000, and the stormwater diversion around it can run ten times that.

Soft costs follow the engineering. Dunedin's seawall design and permitting ran 9.8 percent of its $3.05 million award. Berkeley carried a 10 percent construction contingency and needed 18 percent. Corps individual permit fees are $100 for businesses; Michigan's joint permit fee runs $250 to $2,000. Timelines run from months to years: Hancock Bridge Marina in Lee County went from hearing examiner to Board approval of a taller dry-stack building in about ten weeks for the zoning step, Fish-Tale Marina went from Hurricane Ian to approval of its 434-boat rebuild in about 35 months, Vero Beach took seven years from concept to ribbon cutting, and Berkeley's dock replacement was confined to a June to November fish window. The study assumes 18 to 36 months from application to certificate of occupancy for a ground-up facility and says which permits set the long pole.

The capital stack is written to the program. On a 504 project the third-party lender holds a first lien for at least 50 percent, the CDC debenture up to 40 percent and $5.5 million, and the borrower 10, 15 or 20 percent under 13 CFR 120.910, with the debenture at 20 or 25 years on real estate and 10 on equipment, and the study separates the travel lift, forklifts and rental fleet onto the equipment term. On a 7(a) acquisition the 10 percent injection is cash or standby-qualified seller debt within the half rule, the term is 10 years unless the 85 percent special use real estate test is met, and the real estate goes to 504 under the July 2026 ordering rule where the combined request exceeds $5 million. On a USDA B&I project the borrower brings 20 to 25 percent, the term runs to the useful life or the lease, and the Corps concession rent is modeled at the graduated scale.

Grants sit beside the debt, not inside it. The Fish and Wildlife Service's Boating Infrastructure Grant program funds tie-up and support facilities for transient recreational vessels 26 feet and longer staying up to 15 days, with Tier 1 awards up to $300,000 competed within each state and Tier 2 awards up to $1.5 million competed nationally, a 25 percent non-federal match, and fiscal 2026 program funding of about $4 million and $14 million respectively; private marinas apply through the state agency and must allow public access, and maintenance dredging is restricted. Clean Vessel Act grants reimburse up to 75 percent of pumpout facilities through state agencies for marinas open to all boaters charging no more than $5 per pumpout. State boating improvement funds, Michigan's Waterways grants, Florida's Inland Navigation District and the Wisconsin, Ohio, Maryland and New York programs appear in the public cost records above as the match on the public side, and the study names the program the subject can realistically use.

A marina's collateral sits on water that the operator does not own, and the study's tenure section is written for the lender's counsel. The instruments differ by state, and so does their fit with a 10, 20 or 25-year loan.

North Carolina grants a submerged-lands easement under G.S. 146-12 for 50 years with one 50-year renewal, a one-time payment of $1,000 per acre of footprint with a riparian credit, issuance deemed within 75 days of a complete application, and transfer to the next upland owner by written notice within 12 months plus a payment; the easement is appurtenant and runs with the land, which makes it the most lender-friendly tenure in the set. Florida's Board of Trustees leases sovereignty submerged lands under Chapter 18-21 of the Administrative Code for a standard term of five or ten years, extended terms to 25 years, with annual rent at the greater of a base rate of $0.156623 per square foot reset each March 1 or 6 percent of gross income from the sovereign lands, a 25 percent surcharge in some cases, assignment only with the Trustees' prior written consent, renewal at the lessor's sole option, and a practice, reported by Florida counsel, of not executing formal consents to mortgages; the rule text and the Department's FAQ disagree on whether a public first-come marina gets five or ten years, and the study reads the official rule. Washington's Department of Natural Resources leases aquatic lands under RCW 79.105 and WAC 332-30 for up to 30 years with possible renewals at water-dependent rent equal to upland value times lease area times 0.30 times a rate of return set at 3.00 percent for the year to June 2027, redetermined every four years, plus 12.84 percent leasehold excise tax; recent private marina authorizations are posted at 12-year terms, which is shorter than a 504 debenture and about the length of a 7(a) term, and the state auditor found in 2024 that DNR could not document a consistent process for choosing the upland parcels that set the rent. Michigan conveys Great Lakes bottomlands for commercial marinas under Part 325 of NREPA on terms the Department sets as "just and equitable," with rent starting on the date of use and a $50 application fee, and requires local government approval with the application. Maryland's Board of Public Works issues tidal wetlands licenses that convey a limited property interest, eliminated license fees in 2021 but may assess compensation, transfers a license on written request from the new riparian owner under COMAR 23.02.04.17, takes about 240 days and $500 for a new license, and requires any new or expanded marina to show an alternatives analysis, a pumpout and consistency with the local marina plan under COMAR 26.24.04.03.

Corps of Engineers lakes are concessions. Rent under the Corps' 1994 scale is a graduated percentage of the prior year's gross receipts, 2.0 percent below $50,000 rising in tenths to 4.6 percent at $5,000,001 and above, with the first lease year at 2.0 percent, fuel and sublessee receipts included, deductions limited to license fees, directly remitted taxes and pass-through electricity, and an optional 1.0 percent flat rate on boat and motor sales. GAO reported 378 active concession leases in 27 states as of June 2022, about $12 million of rent in fiscal 2023, and found the Corps had not documented any review of the rates since 1994; the Corps implemented a review process in March 2025, the House Oversight Chairman asked GAO for a second examination in July 2026, and the MARINA Act, H.R. 7248, which would set 50-year initial and 25-year renewal terms and cap low-margin sales at 1 percent, is pending and not law. The lease instrument itself is governed by Engineer Regulation 405-1-12, which the Federal Register records as not available to the public, so term, encumbrance, lender cure rights and ownership of docks at expiration must be read from the borrower's actual lease. The public subleases MMCG has read show what to expect: Corps approval of any transfer of a controlling interest, the District Engineer's right to review rates and require reductions, a 2.5 percent of gross maintenance escrow at Kentucky's Paintsville Lake, and, in one Table Rock sublease, a mutual 30-day termination right where lake levels make operation impracticable. Table Rock's 2020 Shoreline Management Plan caps lakewide access at 30,806 boat slips and launch-ramp parking spaces and reserves marina buffer areas, which is why the study on that lake favors buying and expanding an existing concession over building a new one.

Public owners lease on three instruments, and only one is financeable as real estate. A management agreement, such as Daytona Beach's $5,000 a month plus a 5 to 9 percent incentive at Halifax Harbor, gives the operator no leasehold. A short concession or license, such as Wyandotte County's two-year term with three one-year extensions or New York's five-year Coles Creek license at a $5,000 minimum, is too short for term debt. A long ground lease with a leasehold mortgagee article, such as Miami Beach's marina site lease with new-lease and insurance-proceeds protections, can carry a loan. The study classifies the subject's instrument before it sizes anything.

Federal permitting runs on its own clock. New docks, dredging, bulkheads and fill require authorization under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, with Section 401 water quality certification from the state and coastal zone consistency under Section 307 of the Coastal Zone Management Act in a coastal state. The 2026 Nationwide Permits were published on January 8, 2026 at 91 FR 768, took effect March 15, 2026 and expire March 15, 2031; the Corps' own figures put the average evaluation of a nationwide permit request at 40 days against 217 days for a standard individual permit, measured from a complete application, and districts state 120 days or more for standard permits that carry Endangered Species Act consultation, cultural resources review or state certification. In Puget Sound the Salish Sea Nearshore Programmatic consultation finalized June 29, 2022 covers repair and replacement of overwater structures within the existing marina footprint with habitat offsets, and Washington's hydraulic code limits in-water work in the central and south Sound to roughly July 15 or August 1 through February 15, so a dock program that misses its window slips a year. In Florida the manatee protection plan's siting criteria set the slip count, dry racks included, and Lee County's own code counts dry slips toward that determination. In Michigan the EGLE and Corps joint permit covers Parts 301 and 325 and Sections 10 and 404 in one application, with a 0 to 45-day completeness review and a 1 to 90-day technical review.

Accessibility and codes are counted, not assumed. The 2010 ADA Standards require one accessible slip for 1 to 25 slips, 2 for 26 to 50, 3 for 51 to 100, 4 for 101 to 150, 5 for 151 to 300 and 6 for 301 to 400, with 60-inch clear pier space and accessible routes, and NFPA 303 for marinas and boatyards, NFPA 30A at the fuel dock and NFPA 13 in a sprinklered rack building enter the cost table through the engineer's letter. Florida's dry-stack buildings are designed to the Florida Building Code's ASCE 7-22 wind maps, and the ultimate design wind speed at the parcel is read from the hazard tool, not from a county average.

The marina study runs the program's own floor, stated in DSCR. A standard 7(a) loan is underwritten to 1.15 times, a 7(a) Small loan to 1.10 times, a 504 loan to 1.15 times on historical EBITDA, and an Initial Acquisition under Appendix 15 to 1.25 times on the last fiscal year or the two-year average. USDA Business and Industry sets no floor for a new loan, and the lender's covenant governs. For a start-up the study reports the year the floor is first met and the reserve that carries the project to it; for an acquisition it reports historical coverage on the seller's returns, because projections cannot be used to meet the floor.

The sensitivities are the marina's own. Rate per foot and occupancy by length class move dockage. Fuel gallons and margin per gallon move the fuel line, which is 12 to 17 percent of revenue at a volume-led marina and almost nothing at a storage-led one. Insurance is escalated at the forecast 12 to 18 percent a year and tested at a doubled named-storm deductible. The Corps rent scale is tested one tier up. A high-water year, a low-water year and a storm-loss year are run as cases, not as adjectives: Table Rock crested at a record 935.47 feet on April 27, 2011 against a 931-foot flood pool, the 2012 Branson tornado destroyed four docks at Port of Kimberling, a July 2025 storm flipped a dock at Shell Knob, Lake Michigan-Huron swung from a record low of 576.02 feet in January 2013 to record highs in 2020, Annapolis logged 18 high-tide flood days in the year to April 2020 against two a year in the mid-1990s with NOAA projecting 75 to 115 by the 2050s, and Fort Myers Beach took a storm surge above 15 feet in Hurricane Ian with dry-stack downtime from seven weeks at Snook Bight to about three years at Fish-Tale. The break-even is stated in slips at the contract rate and, for a dry-stack, in racks.

The transient rule is itself a sensitivity. The study presents the revenue mix on three readings: dockage only, dockage plus fuel and service to transient customers, and dockage plus month-to-month contracts and rental or club income counted as transient. Where the file passes on one reading and fails on another, the determination says which reading it rests on and conditions the loan on the lender's written confirmation.

Marina collateral is a going concern on a leasehold, and the appraisal has to say what is real property, what is personal property and what is business value. Docks, piers, floating docks, boat lifts, travel lifts and dry-stack racks are real property, fixtures or equipment depending on state law and how they are attached, and MMCG found no Florida, Washington, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Missouri or Arkansas statute or decision that settles the question for lenders; until counsel does, the study recommends that the lender describe the docks, lifts and racks in both the mortgage and a UCC fixture filing. Where the business is bought, Appendix 15 requires the allocation of land, site improvements, docks and going concern, and the 85 percent special use real estate test decides the term; county assessment data put land at 62 to 85 percent of assessed value, averaging 77 percent, on six Anne Arundel County marinas, which is the kind of public evidence the study brings to the appraiser's allocation. Where the real estate is a submerged-lands lease, the appraisal values the leasehold interest only for the term that remains, and the lender's term cannot exceed it.

Insurance is priced on the water side. NFIP covers the upland building and nothing over the water, so flood and windstorm coverage on docks comes from the private market with named-storm deductibles the study tests; marine underwriters name dry-stack accumulation as a high-hazard exposure; Sun Communities recorded $4.4 million of marina impairments from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024. After a loss, SBA physical disaster loans of up to $2 million at rates capped at 8 percent, or 4 percent without credit elsewhere, and economic injury loans to the same cap over up to 30 years are available to businesses and to the private nonprofit clubs excluded from 7(a) and 504, and FEMA Public Assistance rebuilds public docks and piers as park facilities; Gulfport's municipal marina took two years from Helene to Corps approval of its 56-slip rebuild and received about $2.05 million in insurance on property in the open. The study carries business interruption cover of at least twelve months as a lender condition on every coastal file.

Coastal wet-slip marinas earn annual, seasonal and transient dockage per foot, electricity, fuel and ship store sales, and they carry the sharpest tenure and storm exposure. The Florida sovereignty lease, the Washington aquatic lands lease and the North Carolina easement each fit a loan differently, hurricane deductibles and private dock coverage set the insurance line, and annual-contract dockage is the eligibility risk under the transient rule. The study maps slip length against the county fleet, reads the lease against the maturity, and classifies the revenue. See the coastal marina feasibility study page.

Inland lake and river marinas on Corps, TVA and utility reservoirs are concessions with sharper seasonality, lake-level risk and a rent formula that counts fuel. Table Rock's 15 concessionaires hold 4,375 wet and 380 dry slips on a lake that draws more than 2 million visitors a year under a plan that caps lakewide slips, covered slips post at $4.80 to $7.86 per foot per month, pontoon rentals at $450 to $765 a day, and TopSide Marinas bought Cape Fair and Hideaway in 2023 and Campbell Point in March 2026 without disclosing a price. The rural location makes B&I the natural program, and the Corps lease the credit. See the lake and river marina feasibility study page.

Dry-stack and rack storage facilities are 504 real estate with a forklift fleet and a wind design. Lee County, Florida registered 49,452 vessels in 2024 with its 26 to 40 foot pleasure class up 10 percent since 2019 to 7,284 boats, has added no public ramp since 2005, approved a 135-foot dry-stack building at Hancock Bridge in February 2026, and no operator there posts a rack rate. Vero Beach's barn cost about $49,000 a rack. The format passes the transient rule only on a month-to-month or club reading, and the study says which. See the dry-stack boat storage feasibility study page.

Boatyards, service yards and haul-out operations earn labor, parts, haul and launch, and storage, with the travel lift as equipment collateral and the wash pad as the environmental question. Macomb County, Michigan reports more than 16,000 slips and 26 marinas on Lake St. Clair, inside heated storage posts at $8.95 to $10.25 per square foot across the Great Lakes, shrink wrap at $13 to $20 per foot, technicians earned a $21.10 mean hourly wage in the northwest Lower Peninsula in 2022 against a $27.67 national median in 2025, and Michigan's industrial stormwater permit does not authorize the discharge of boat wash water. Whether a yard that stores and repairs boats is a "marina" for the transient rule at all is an open question the study puts to the lender in writing. See the boatyard and service yard feasibility study page.

Marina acquisitions are Appendix 15 files with a tenure transfer attached. The price is tested at 1.25 times historical coverage, the seller note is capped at half the injection, the Quality of Earnings report is triggered at $3 million, and the lease or license has to move to the buyer: by notice in North Carolina, by the Trustees' consent in Florida, by Board of Public Works approval in Maryland, by Corps approval of the change in control on a reservoir. Anne Arundel County's 2025 and 2026 sales ran from $2.9 million for a 278-slip foreclosure in Baltimore to $4.6 million for a 35-slip boatyard and $10.75 million for a 90-slip Eastport marina with a fuel dock and parking bought by a yacht club. See the marina acquisition feasibility study page.

Mixed-use waterfront, the marina with a restaurant, lodging, retail or slip condominiums, is underwritten on occupancy and classification. Third-party tenants count against the 51 and 60 percent occupancy tests, slip condominiums under a state's condominium act put the slips outside the operating business and raise the USDA commercial rental and residential exclusions, and the Miami Beach marina ground lease shows the leasehold mortgagee protections a lender needs on public land. The study separates the operating company's revenue from unit sales and association dues and tests the business share against the 50 percent rule. See the waterfront mixed-use feasibility study page.

Public, municipal and nonprofit marinas cannot borrow from SBA, and their private operators can only on a financeable instrument. The study for a public owner is written to the enterprise fund, to USDA Community Facilities where the facility is a port or public access, to the Boating Infrastructure Grant and Clean Vessel Act programs, to revenue bonds and to FEMA Public Assistance after a storm; the study for a private operator classifies the instrument and matches the loan to it. Daytona Beach's management agreement, New York's five-year license, Wyandotte County's two-year concession and Miami Beach's ground lease are the four shapes the study recognizes. See the public and municipal marina feasibility study page.

Fuel docks, ship stores and boat clubs are lines within a marina rather than formats of their own. Fuel runs 12 to 17 percent of revenue at a volume-led marina on a 20 to 38 percent gross margin and brings the Phase I, the tank program and Appendix 7 questions; the ship store earned under 1 percent of Safe Harbor's gross profit; Freedom Boat Club franchises carry a $50,000 fee and a $181,000 to $500,500 investment including fleet on the aggregator record and no Item 19, and how membership income sits under the transient rule is an SBA question. RV and boat storage on land is covered on the RV park feasibility study page and in MMCG's U.S. RV and Boat Storage Market: 2026 Outlook.

SBA 7(a) finances marina acquisitions, leasehold improvements on leased or public water, fuel systems, equipment, rental fleets and working capital, with a $5 million cap, a guarantee of 85 percent on loans of $150,000 or less and 75 percent above, a maximum variable rate of Prime plus 3.0 percent on loans above $350,000, the Appendix 15 tests on acquisitions, and the Seasonal CAPLine for the pre-season build-up of inventory and labor on a 10-year maximum maturity. It is the program for the acquisition, the operator on a 12-year state lease and the yard that buys a lift. See the SBA 7(a) feasibility study page.

SBA 504 finances owned marina real estate, bulkheads, docks, dry-stack buildings and long-life equipment through a fixed-rate debenture of up to $5 million, or $5.5 million for a public policy project, paired with a third-party first mortgage of at least 50 percent of project cost, at a borrower contribution of 10, 15 or 20 percent under 13 CFR 120.910, with marinas on the special purpose list. It is the program for the dry-stack building on owned land and the boatyard expansion, and the October 2026 debenture at 6.97 percent is about three points under the 7(a) cap. Both programs require the borrower to occupy at least 51 percent of an existing building or 60 percent of new construction under 13 CFR 120.131, with slips and docks counted as rentable property. See the SBA 504 feasibility study and SBA feasibility study pages.

USDA Business and Industry finances rural marinas and lake resorts to $25 million at an 85 percent guarantee under $5 million, with the equity, lease-term and feasibility rules described above and fiscal 2027 terms pending. It has no transient rule, which makes it the program for the annual-contract marina in a rural county. See the USDA feasibility study page.

Conventional lenders underwrite marinas to a DSCR of 1.20 to 1.35 times on a going-concern appraisal and read the same study, and they are the fallback for the coastal marina that fails the transient rule in a metropolitan county.

MMCG illustrates its marina method through model engagements, each built from public records and benchmarks and written in the register of the study itself. The engagements are illustrative; the program rules, the lease terms, the cost records and the market evidence are real, and none of it is drawn from any client file. Each case is published as its own page and follows the order of the study: site, tenure, market, cost, capital stack, projection, DSCR by year, break-even, sensitivities, conditions and determination.

A MMCG marina feasibility study runs between 80 and 130 pages and includes the boating market with the registration series named by county and length class, the slip supply and the verified competitive census with posted rates by type and the permitted pipeline, the site and basin analysis with the tenure instrument classified and the FEMA, CBRS and manatee or salmonid screens run, the revenue projection by line with the transient share reported on each reading, the operating projection on the published benchmarks, the project cost estimate or acquisition analysis tested against public bid records, the capital stack by program with the contribution tier stated, the DSCR schedule by year, the break-even and sensitivity tables with the lake-level, storm and rent cases, the collateral and insurance discussion, the conditions list written for the lender, and a signed conclusion. Every rate, every cost and every program rule is cited to its own published source, and the study states which figures are primary-verified, which are posted asking rates, and which are flagged assumptions that the operator's own records or a quote must replace.

Standard delivery is nine to sixteen business days from engagement and receipt of the project file. Expedited delivery in five to seven business days is available. Fees begin at $4,900 for a single-site SBA 7(a) marina study and range from $7,500 to $15,000 for SBA 504, acquisition and USDA studies depending on the program, the number of scenarios and the tenure and environmental work. Payment is 50 percent at engagement and 50 percent at delivery. MMCG has offered a written acceptance guarantee on every study since founding: revisions required by the lender or agency are made at no additional cost. Monte Carlo simulation of occupancy, rate and fuel is available on request and is not a program requirement.

Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., FMVA, Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute, from the firm's San Francisco office at 27 Maiden Lane, Suite 625. The same study is prepared to the lender requirements of the state the project sits in; see where we work and the state pages for Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Washington, North Carolina, New York, California and Texas.

Related asset classes: RV park feasibility study, glamping and short-term rental feasibility study, hotel feasibility study, restaurant feasibility study, retail feasibility study, gas station feasibility study, mixed-use feasibility study. MMCG's marina and boat storage engagements, including a 200-unit RV and boat storage facility financed on SBA 504 in Killeen, Texas, are listed on the engagements page.