Public and Municipal Marina Feasibility Study for USDA Community Facilities, Grants and Private Operators on Public Water

A municipal, port district or nonprofit marina cannot borrow from SBA, and its private operator can borrow only on an instrument long enough to carry the loan. MMCG Invest prepares public marina feasibility studies for USDA Community Facilities, Boating Infrastructure and Clean Vessel Act grants, state boating funds, revenue bonds, FEMA Public Assistance and the SBA, USDA and conventional loans a private concessionaire takes, built on the enterprise-fund statements public marinas actually publish, the rent and term structures in public concession agreements, and a debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) schedule run on the instrument the operator actually holds.

Public marinas are the best-documented marinas in the country and the hardest to finance with federal credit. Government-owned entities are ineligible for SBA 7(a) and 504 under 13 CFR 120.110(j), nonprofit clubs under 120.110(a), and USDA's Business and Industry program is written for private commercial enterprises. What a public marina has instead is a published record: the Port of Edmonds' 2026 budget shows $9,454,000 of marina revenue with permanent moorage at 55 percent, fuel at 19 percent, dry storage at 11 percent and guest moorage at 2.8 percent, payroll at 29.6 percent of revenue, insurance at 3.8 percent, repairs at 9.3 percent and a $29.1 million seawall phase planned for 2028; the City of Sacramento's marina fund ran net losses of $266,358 and $347,940 in two reported years on slip licenses of 82 percent of revenue; Elmwood Township's Grand Traverse Bay marina earned $580,209 seasonal and $105,805 transient in 2022 and recommended a replacement reserve equal to its infrastructure amortization; Havre de Grace's marina fund carried a $1.2 million balance in April 2026 against $5.7 million of anticipated marine capital costs through 2028, including dredging and underground fuel tank replacement, and its commission warned that slip rates above $72 a foot would drive tenants to marinas with floating docks. Those statements are the benchmarks every marina study borrows, and the public-owner study is written from them.

The second reason is that the public owner and the private operator are two different files. The owner's question is how to fund docks, dredging and a seawall from the enterprise fund, grants, bonds and disaster aid. The operator's question is whether the instrument the owner offers can be mortgaged. The study answers whichever is asked and says plainly when the instrument cannot carry the loan the operator wants. The general marina method is on the marina feasibility study hub.

USDA Community Facilities is the one federal loan program a rural public marina can reach, and it reaches it narrowly. 7 CFR 5001.103(a) lists transportation facilities such as ports and community parks and activity centers that are an integral part of a community's orderly development among eligible facilities; the facility must be for public use under 5001.103(b); space leased to ineligible commercial uses must be under 25 percent of floor area under 5001.103(d); and 5001.115(b) excludes publicly owned or nonprofit amusement parks, water parks and similar recreational facilities inherently commercial in nature and primarily used for recreation. A municipal marina framed as a port, a harbor of refuge or a public access facility has a textual path; one framed as a recreational facility runs into the exclusion, and the USDA state office decides. A financial feasibility report under 5001.304 and Appendix B to Subpart D, not the Appendix A business study, is the Community Facilities document, and the regulation notes that recreation projects need other revenue or payment guarantors. The feasibility study trigger for a new entity or a new activity is the same $1,000,000. See the USDA feasibility study page and the USDA regulatory spine.

The grants are specific and small against a dock program. 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: Tier 1 awards up to $300,000 competed within each state with fiscal 2026 program funding of about $4 million across an expected 25 awards, Tier 2 awards up to $1.5 million competed nationally with about $14 million across an expected 26 awards and a fiscal 2025 average of $885,000, a 25 percent non-federal match under 50 CFR 86.32, applications through the state agency, public access required, and maintenance dredging restricted; the fiscal 2025 Tier 2 round funded 20 slips at Conneaut, Ohio for $2,007,500, 14 at Bristol, Pennsylvania for $2,454,050 and 10 at Bayfield, Wisconsin for $783,000. Clean Vessel Act grants, funded from the Sport Fish Restoration account, reimburse up to 75 percent of a pumpout through the state agency for facilities open to all boaters charging no more than $5 per pumpout, with coastal preference; Kentucky has funded 77 projects with more than $1.6 million. Michigan's Waterways program funded Ludington's 40-slip Dock A at $1,982,475 on a 75 percent grant, Mackinaw City's fuel tanks at $358,575 and Marquette's Cinder Pond piers at $3,388,000 in 2025 and 2026; Florida's Inland Navigation District put $1,534,000 into Vero Beach's boat barn phase; Washington's Recreation and Conservation Office requires at least 10 percent from non-state, non-federal sources. Sport Fish Restoration boating access funds, the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the state boating improvement programs of Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin and New York complete the public stack, and the study names the one the subject can realistically use.

After a storm, FEMA Public Assistance lists parks including piers and docks among eligible public facilities for state, local, tribal and territorial applicants, excluding facilities under another federal agency's authority, and obligated $1,729,343.83 to rebuild Whiskey Island Marina's floating docks for Cuyahoga County after Sandy; Gulfport, Florida's municipal marina took two years from Hurricane Helene to Corps approval of its 56-slip rebuild in September 2026, received about $2.05 million of insurance on property in the open, reported $260,053 of lost basin revenue, and had its marina repair grouped with two park projects in one FEMA application. SBA physical disaster loans of up to $2 million at rates capped at 8 percent, or 4 percent without credit elsewhere, over up to 30 years are available to private nonprofit clubs that 7(a) and 504 exclude. Revenue bonds and the general fund carry the rest, and the study models the enterprise fund the way the finance director will read it.

A private operator on public water can borrow from SBA, USDA or a bank only on an instrument that runs at least as long as the loan and can be assigned, and public owners use three. A management agreement, such as Daytona Beach's agreement with Marinas International at Halifax Harbor paying the operator $5,000 a month plus 5 percent of adjusted gross revenue from $2.3 million to $2.7 million, 7 percent to $3.1 million and 9 percent above on a five-year renewable term, gives the operator no leasehold and nothing to mortgage. A short concession or license, such as Wyandotte County's two-year marina concession with three one-year extensions, New York State Parks' five-year Coles Creek license at a $5,000 minimum with the licensee paying utilities and fuel, or Empire State Development's First Buffalo River Marina operator RFP with base rent, a percentage of gross receipts and an operator capital plan, cannot carry term debt and sizes the loan to equipment and working capital. A long ground lease with a leasehold mortgagee article, such as Miami Beach's marina site lease, with its new-lease and insurance-proceeds protections, or Los Angeles County's Marina del Rey leases, can carry a mortgage; the clauses are read on the waterfront mixed-use feasibility study page. Corps of Engineers concessions sit between the second and third: rent at 2.0 to 4.6 percent of gross receipts under a 1994 scale GAO found unreviewed, a lease form that is not public, Corps approval of any change in controlling interest, and, in one Table Rock sublease, a mutual termination right where lake levels make operation impracticable; the Kentucky Paintsville Lake sublease shows a 2.5 percent of gross maintenance escrow and $5 million of liability cover as the public precedent. SBA's leasehold chapter requires the lease term to equal or exceed the loan with an assignment and landlord's waiver, and ground lease clauses on encumbrance, amendment, lender cure and proceeds; USDA's 5001.105(b)(14) requires the lease term to be at least the loan term with no impairing reverter; neither says a word about public waterfront, and the study reads the instrument for counsel. The rules are on the SBA regulatory spine and the SBA 7(a) and SBA 504 pages; the reservoir version is on the lake and river marina feasibility study page.

The operator's eligibility is then the ordinary marina test. SBA lends to a marina only where more than 50 percent of prior-year revenue comes from transients staying 30 days or less, which a destination transient harbor can meet and a home-port marina cannot; USDA has no such rule but requires a rural county and a private for-profit borrower. Washington's port tenants pay 12.84 percent leasehold excise tax on moorage, which a private operator on DNR land pays on its rent and a private marina on private land does not, a price difference the study carries. Port of Seattle, Port of Poulsbo and Port of Bremerton tariffs, Michigan's state harbor schedule at $770 to $2,420 for a 20-foot seasonal slip across ten tiers, Annapolis City Dock's $3.00 to $4.00 per foot per night, and Havre de Grace's $72 per foot per year are the public rate anchors the operator's projection is tested against.

The public marina's projection is an enterprise fund budget, and the study writes it in that form: permanent, seasonal and transient moorage by length class, dry storage, fuel at the 80 percent cost of sales and 2 percent card fees Edmonds budgets, electric resale, launch and parking fees, liveaboard fees where the port allows them, and the leasehold excise or payment in lieu of taxes the jurisdiction charges. The expense side carries the public employer's payroll and benefits, which overstate a private operator's cost, and a replacement reserve, which Elmwood sets at the infrastructure amortization and Edmonds carries as annual waler, flotation, electrical and gutter lines. Rate elasticity is read from the record: Havre de Grace raised its annual rate from $68 to $70 to $72 a foot over three years and its commission warned that the next increase would cost tenants. Seasonality is modeled monthly from the posted season dates and deposit schedules. For a private operator the same lines are run on the operator's own structure, with the rent, minimum annual guarantee, escrow and capital commitments the instrument imposes.

Public marinas are where dock costs are published, and the study uses them: about $49,600 per slip at Ludington and about $100,000 at Berkeley and Conneaut in 2024 and 2025, transient side-tie docks at $996 to $4,719 per linear foot in the fiscal 2025 Boating Infrastructure Grant budgets, marina seawall at about $3,700 per linear foot at Sarasota in 2026, Port Orchard's breakwater at $17 million to $20 million with every 2026 bid rejected, Edmonds' seawall phases at $3.0 million and $29.1 million, maintenance dredging at $42 to $57 per cubic yard for a small basin, a fuel system at $358,575 to $2 million, and Vero Beach's 120-rack municipal boat barn at $5.9 million. Berkeley's low bid came in 18 percent above the engineer's estimate and its contingency was 10 percent; Dunedin's design and permitting ran 9.8 percent. The public capital stack is the enterprise fund, the state grant at 75 percent at most, the federal grant at 75 percent at most with the match stacked, revenue bonds, and FEMA after a storm; the operator's stack is its own equity, the lender's loan sized to the instrument, and the capital plan the RFP required of it.

For the public owner the study reports enterprise-fund coverage of any revenue bond or Community Facilities loan at the covenant the issuer or Agency sets, with the general fund subsidy, if any, stated. For the operator it reports DSCR by year on the operator's own cash flow against 1.15 times on a standard 7(a) or 504 loan, 1.25 times historical on an acquisition, or the lender's covenant on a B&I loan, and it states plainly when the instrument's term caps the loan. The cases are the public marina's: rate elasticity, the storm year with two years of downtime, the dredging cycle, the fuel tank replacement, the rent review clause and the lake-level clause on a reservoir, and the transient reading on which SBA eligibility depends.

A MMCG public marina study includes the owner's program analysis with Community Facilities eligibility and the grant stack, or the operator's instrument analysis with term, assignment, encumbrance, rent and capital clauses written for counsel; the enterprise-fund or operator projection by line; the competitive census against the public tariffs; the dock, seawall, dredging and fuel system cost tested against the public bid record; the capital stack; the coverage schedule; the storm, rate and lease cases; and a signed conclusion. Standard delivery is nine to sixteen business days; expedited delivery in five to seven is available. Fees begin at $4,900 for a single-site study and run $7,500 to $15,000 for grant, Community Facilities and operator studies. Revisions required by the lender or agency are made at no additional cost under MMCG's written acceptance guarantee. See MMCG's feasibility study methodology and where we work.

The nearest model cases are the two private operators on public water: the Ozarks reservoir concession marina under USDA B&I, Table Rock Lake, on a Corps lease, and the Puget Sound marina on a DNR aquatic lands lease, Kitsap County, Washington, beside the Port of Bremerton's tariffs. The coastal and lake methods are on the coastal marina feasibility study and lake and river marina feasibility study pages.