Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA 7 CFR Part 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. 4,000+ engagements since 1998 covering $41.2 billion in evaluated project value. So far in 2026: 41 engagements and $1.54 billion evaluated — 17 SBA, 11 USDA.
Industrial feasibility is a function of throughput economics and location logic: highway and intermodal access, labor shed depth, power and clear-height specifications against the target tenant class, and the supply pipeline of competing big-box and infill product. For owner-occupied industrial, the study evaluates whether the operating company's volume, margins, and growth trajectory support the facility investment. For speculative or multi-tenant industrial, the analysis tests market vacancy, net absorption, and rent trajectory against the development basis.
The analysis draws on CoStar industrial inventory and absorption series, state DOT freight corridor data, utility capacity confirmation, BLS occupational employment for the warehouse labor pool, and RSMeans location-adjusted construction budgeting. The financial model carries the program-required coverage tests on stabilized cash flow, with sensitivity runs on rent, vacancy, and interest rate consistent with our standard ±5/10/15 percent discipline.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Industrial projects are financed across SBA 504 owner-occupied acquisitions and ground-up construction, USDA B&I for rural processing and distribution, and conventional structures for investor product; the study is built to the SOP 50 10 8, 7 CFR Part 5001, or conventional underwriting standard the engagement requires.
Representative work includes a $13,951,404 SBA 504 industrial storage acquisition in Hayward, California and cold-chain logistics analysis within the firm's $33,656,250 cold storage portfolio work. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
A study for this asset class is not a repurposed retail or office template. The scope is built around the physical and operational realities of industrial property: clear heights, column spacing, dock-door ratios, truck-court depths, power service levels, and rail or intermodal proximity. Each of those specifications is matched against the documented requirements of the target tenant class or the owner-operator's production process, so the report can explain why the building program is or is not supportable by the market it intends to serve.
Demand for industrial space is not derived from population ratios or consumer-spending indices. It is derived from freight movement, supply-chain configuration decisions, and the operational economics of the businesses that occupy the space. The analysis is built from sources that reflect those realities rather than from generic demographic proxies.
Freight demand evidence comes from state DOT freight corridor studies, Federal Highway Administration freight flow data, and, where relevant, publicly filed Surface Transportation Board rail-car records. E-commerce fulfillment demand is traced through publicly available retailer distribution-network announcements and third-party logistics provider leasing activity reported in commercial real-estate transaction records. For owner-occupied manufacturing or processing facilities, industry shipment data from the Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Manufactures and trade-association production indices provide the external demand check against the borrower's own revenue projections.
Competitive supply is counted from building-permit databases, municipal planning-commission agendas, utility interconnection queues, and CoStar's industrial inventory series — cross-referenced against each other because no single source captures the full pipeline. Tenant demand is further tested against published third-party logistics and industrial leasing surveys, port authority cargo-volume reports where the site is within a port-dependent corridor, and economic-development agency targeted-industry lists that signal where public incentives are being directed and why.
Coverage ratios for industrial projects are sensitive to a smaller set of inputs than most other commercial property types, which means each one carries more weight and must be tested with corresponding rigor. The following inputs are the ones that most frequently move a project from feasible to marginal or from marginal to infeasible when stressed.
For owner-occupied projects, the operating company's revenue, margin, and fixed-charge history replace market rent as the primary coverage driver, and the analysis runs a global cash-flow test alongside the real-estate coverage test.
SBA 504 financing for owner-occupied industrial acquisitions and ground-up construction requires the feasibility study to demonstrate that the operating company's projected cash flow, after all fixed charges including the proposed debt service, meets the 1.15x operating coverage and 1.00x global coverage minimums set out in SOP 50 10 8. The study must also establish that the facility is appropriately sized for the company's documented volume and growth trajectory — an oversized building relative to demonstrated throughput is a common basis for a conditional or adverse finding.
USDA Business & Industry and Value-Added Producer Grant engagements introduce additional considerations: the project must serve a rural area as defined by 7 CFR Part 5001, and the analysis must address community economic impact, jobs created or retained, and the borrower's capacity to service debt from operations rather than from asset liquidation. Rural processing and distribution facilities often involve commodity price risk that must be addressed in the sensitivity analysis.
Conventional lenders underwriting speculative or multi-tenant industrial product focus on submarket vacancy relative to the project's lease-up assumption, the creditworthiness and lease-term depth of anchor tenants, and the loan-to-cost and loan-to-value relationship at stabilization. A lender's stated coverage standard of 1.20x on stabilized net operating income is the threshold the model is built to test honestly — not to engineer toward. Independence means the conclusion follows the numbers, and the report documents the reasoning transparently enough that any credit officer can reconstruct it.
The fee for an industrial, warehouse & logistics feasibility study is fixed and quoted in writing within one business day of receiving the project description. No portion of the fee is contingent on the finding, and the quoted amount does not change if the analysis produces an adverse or conditional conclusion. That structure is a prerequisite for independence: a fee that depends on a favorable outcome is not a fee that supports an honest study.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. The data room for an industrial engagement typically includes the site control document or purchase agreement, the borrower's three years of financial statements and interim period, the proposed building program and site plan, any existing appraisal or environmental report, the lender's term sheet, and, for owner-occupied projects, the company's customer and revenue concentration detail. Rush delivery is available when the lending timeline requires it.
Every engagement is published to a secure client portal where the fully linked Excel financial model remains live after delivery. A credit officer or agency reviewer can change any input — rent, vacancy, construction cost, interest rate — and watch every downstream ratio recalculate in real time. There are no hardcoded values. The narrative report, ten-year pro forma, sensitivity tables, interest-rate stress runs, RMA & IBISWorld ratio benchmarks, and explicit statement of conditions are all delivered together as a single, internally consistent package.
The fee is fixed, quoted in writing within one business day, and does not change based on the finding. Because no portion of the fee is contingent on a favorable conclusion, the structure supports the independence that lenders and agencies require. Contact Wert-Berater with the project description and the applicable loan program to receive a specific quote.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. The most common cause of delay is an incomplete submission — missing financial statements, an unsigned purchase agreement, or an absent term sheet. Rush delivery is available when the lending timeline is compressed. Providing a complete data room at the outset is the most reliable way to hold the standard window.
The primary difficulty is that industrial feasibility depends on operational specifics — clear height, dock-door count, power capacity, truck-court geometry — that must be matched against a defined tenant class before market rent and absorption data become meaningful. A 32-foot clear distribution building and a 24-foot clear light-manufacturing building serve different demand pools in the same submarket, and conflating them produces an unreliable coverage conclusion.
Generally no. SBA SOP 50 10 8 and USDA 7 CFR Part 5001 have different coverage tests, different definitions of eligible use, and different documentation requirements. A study built to one standard may not satisfy the other without material revision. If dual-program financing is under consideration, that should be disclosed at engagement so the study is structured to address both sets of requirements from the outset.
The core data room for an industrial engagement includes three years of business financial statements and a current interim period, the site control or purchase agreement, the proposed building program and site plan, the lender's term sheet, and — for owner-occupied projects — customer concentration and revenue detail. Cold-storage or processing projects may also require utility capacity documentation and any existing environmental or engineering reports.
No. A feasibility study is an independent analytical opinion prepared to the applicable underwriting standard. It documents whether the evidence supports the project as proposed and at what confidence level. Loan approval is the lender's and agency's determination, made on the full credit file. Wert-Berater's fiduciary duty runs to the lender and reviewing agency, not to the borrower, and no finding is revised to improve the probability of approval.
Large-format industrial land is increasingly competed for by computing campuses, which underwrite very differently from distribution or manufacturing. Where that is the proposed use, see data center feasibility studies.
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Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent provider of feasibility studies and other related services. The firm does not provide financing or equity investment advice, and does not arrange, broker, or place debt or equity capital of any kind.
All appraisal assignments are performed by Bruce E. Jones, MAI, ASA-GC, BCA, CMEA, a member of the Appraisal Institute since 2006, a staff member of Wert-Berater, Inc. and owner of Special Purpose Realty Valuation.