Wert-Berater, Inc. is an independent marina feasibility study consultant preparing lender- and agency-ready studies for marinas, wet-slip facilities, dry-stack boat storage developments, expansions, and acquisitions. Our analysis evaluates registered-vessel demand, competitive wet-slip and rack supply, occupancy, rates, absorption, fuel and service revenue, construction and marine infrastructure costs, flood and coastal risk, debt-service coverage, and downside sensitivity for SBA, USDA, and conventional financing.
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.
A marina feasibility study consultant is retained by the lender, the CDC, or the agency to determine whether a proposed marina or dry-stack boat storage facility can fill its slips and racks, at the rates assumed, quickly enough to service the debt. Marina credits are not analyzed like commercial real estate, and a marina with rooms or cabins also requires a hotel feasibility study consultant to test lodging demand separately. The demand universe is a countable population of registered vessels, the supply is a countable inventory of slips and rack positions, and the question a lender needs answered is what share of that vessel population the subject must capture to reach stabilization.
The work begins by defining the market area, which for marine assets is not a single ring. A wet-slip facility draws from a cruising radius shaped by navigable water, channel depth, bridge clearance, and run time to open water or a desirable destination. A dry-stack facility draws from a trailering radius shaped by road access and the willingness of owners to drive to a launch. Both are bounded by where boats actually are, so the analysis resolves the registered-vessel population within the relevant geography by county and, where the state publishes it, by ZIP code.
That population is then segmented, because a boat is not a unit of demand until it fits. Vessel registrations are broken down by length class and hull type, and only the classes the subject can physically accommodate enter the addressable pool. Rack dimensions and vessel length limitations set a hard ceiling on a dry-stack building; slip length, beam, and draft do the same on the water. A facility built for vessels up to a given length cannot serve the segment above it, however large that segment is.
Supply is then counted directly rather than estimated. The competitive census records every wet-slip marina, dry-stack operator, open and covered trailered storage yard, and municipal or club facility within the market area, with its slip and rack count, its current occupancy, whether it maintains a waitlist, its monthly rack rates and annual slip rates, and the condition and access quality of the facility. Private residential docks and any planned or permitted supply are netted out where the evidence supports it, because a boat already berthed behind a house is not available demand and a permitted competitor will be open before the subject stabilizes.
Against that picture the study calculates the capture rate the subject requires and tests whether it is achievable, then builds the revenue. Slip and rack rent is the base, but marina economics rarely close on rent alone: fuel volume and fuel margin, launch and retrieval, haul-out, service and repair labour, wash-down, and ship's store income are each modeled where the project actually offers them, with seasonality and launch frequency driving the variable lines. Against revenue sits payroll, insurance, dockage and building maintenance, dredging and seawall reserves, utilities, and management. Development cost is tested separately, because marine civil work — dock systems, pilings, bulkheads, dredging, and hurricane-rated rack buildings — behaves differently from vertical construction and is frequently the item that moves a project from feasible to marginal. The output is an absorption schedule to stabilized occupancy, a debt-service coverage conclusion, and sensitivity testing that reports the combination of occupancy, rate, and cost at which coverage fails.
Three different assets are often described with the same words, and they are underwritten differently. Identifying which one is actually proposed determines the demand universe, the competitive set, and the cost structure the study must analyze.
A marina is a waterfront operation. Demand comes from vessels that stay in the water, so the analysis is governed by navigable access, channel depth, bridge clearance, and cruising patterns rather than by road distance. Revenue is built on annual and seasonal slip rent by length class, with dockage utilization varying through the season, and is frequently supported by a fuel dock, marine service and repair, and haul-out. The cost side carries obligations no land asset has: dock and pier systems, utility pedestals, seawalls, dredging cycles, submerged-land rights or leases, and coastal and environmental permitting. Storm exposure and, on inland reservoirs, lake-level variability are modeled as operating risks rather than as remote contingencies.
A dry-stack facility stores vessels in a multi-level rack system, increasingly in an enclosed and wind-rated building, and launches them on demand with a marine forklift. Demand is drawn from the registered boat population within a realistic trailering radius, segmented tightly by length class because rack bay dimensions are fixed at construction and cannot be changed later. Revenue is monthly rack rent differentiated by rack class and vessel size, plus launch and retrieval, wash-down, and fuel where offered. The critical operating variables are forklift capacity and launch turnaround at peak, since a facility that cannot launch promptly on a summer weekend loses tenants regardless of rate. Proximity to a suitable launch or basin is a siting requirement, and in coastal wind zones the hurricane-rated building specification drives a large part of the capital budget.
Land-based vehicle storage — open parking, covered canopy spaces, and enclosed drive-up units for RVs, trailers, and boats on trailers — is a different asset with a different buyer. The trade area is a land-based drive-time ring rather than a cruising or launch radius, demand is driven by household RV and boat ownership together with residential and HOA parking restrictions that push vehicles off-site, and the economics follow self-storage-style lease-up: monthly rent per space by type, absorption toward stabilized occupancy, and modest ancillary income. Where that is the project proposed, the applicable engagement is covered by the firm’s RV and boat storage feasibility studies rather than by a marina study.
Marina and dry-stack feasibility rests on registered-vessel demand against wet-slip and rack supply within the realistic trailering and cruising radius. The study counts the vessel population by length class from state registration data, censuses every competing slip and rack with current occupancy and rates, and models the proposed facility's capture by class. Hurricane-rated dry-stack construction, fuel and service revenue, and the storage-versus-slip pricing relationship each receive explicit treatment, as does flood-zone and coastal regulatory position.
Methodology uses state vessel registration files, a physical competitive census, FEMA flood-zone documentation, and marine-industry benchmarks, with RSMeans-based budgets for rack systems and pre-engineered buildings. The model carries occupancy ramp by rack class, ancillary revenue, and liquidation analysis with orderly and forced recovery scenarios where the lender requires it.
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. Marina projects are financed under SBA 504 with special-purpose collateral treatment, USDA B&I for qualifying rural coastal communities, and conventional structures; for operating-property acquisitions, a going concern appraisal can address the combined real estate and business value.
Current and recent work includes a $23,750,000 SBA 504 dry-stack boathouse and RV storage facility of 437 spaces in Sarasota, Florida and marina engagements including Lake Cumberland at $25,000,000 under USDA B&I. 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.
Completed marine engagements include the Sarasota dry-stack boat storage feasibility study — a $23,750,000 SBA 504 project comprising 437 total storage spaces, of which 350 are dry-stack boat positions in a 79,864-square-foot hurricane-rated building and 87 are RV and trailer spaces — together with a completed marina feasibility study at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky, an inland reservoir market where lake-level policy governs access, and a marina hospitality feasibility study in Catskill, New York. Land-based vehicle storage without a marine component is analyzed separately under the firm’s RV and boat storage feasibility studies.
Marina and boat storage feasibility determinations are prepared under the direction of Donald Safranek, MSc, President of Wert-Berater, Inc. The firm provides independent market and financial analysis for lenders and agencies; it does not provide engineering, surveying, environmental or legal opinions. Last reviewed 2 September 2026.
A marina & dry-stack boat storage feasibility study is not a market overview or a repackaged appraisal. It is a purpose-built credit document that answers the specific questions a lender or agency must resolve before committing capital to a project whose revenue depends on vessel counts, rack geometry, water access, and coastal regulatory position. The narrative addresses site control, zoning and permitting status, competitive supply, demand capture, construction cost, and stabilized operating economics in a single integrated argument.
Every element ties directly to the financial model so that a change in any single assumption — rack count, launch fee, or fuel margin — flows through the full ten-year pro forma without manual re-entry.
Demand for boat storage is not inferred from population growth or general recreation trends. It is counted from primary registrations and cross-referenced against physical supply. The methodology begins with state vessel registration files, which most coastal and inland waterway states publish at the county level and update annually. Those files are segmented by overall length — the dimension that determines whether a vessel fits a given rack tier or slip class — and by registration address to establish the geographic distribution of latent demand relative to the proposed site.
Supply is measured through a field census rather than a database pull. Each competing facility is visited or contacted to confirm current rack inventory by tier, wet-slip count by length class, current occupancy, published storage rates, and any announced expansion. Trailered dry-storage yards, municipal boat ramps with adjacent parking, and informal seasonal storage operations are included because they represent substitutes that affect pricing power. State boating-access program inventories and county marina master plans, where they exist, provide a secondary check on supply counts.
Seasonal demand patterns are addressed through state licensing data on peak-registration months and, where available, fuel-sales records from comparable facilities that reflect actual launch frequency. Marine industry trade-association data provides context for absorption benchmarks without substituting for the local count. The competitive analysis concludes with an explicit capture-rate argument by rack class, grounded in the facility’s location, pricing position, and service offering relative to each identified competitor.
The required capture rate is the single figure that makes a marina or dry-stack projection reviewable. Conceptually it is the subject’s slip or rack capacity divided by the supportable demand pool remaining in the market area — the share of available vessels the facility must sign to reach the occupancy its pro forma assumes.
Reaching a defensible figure requires each input to be established separately. The total registered vessel population in the market area sets the outer boundary. Segmentation by length class reduces that to the vessels the subject can physically accommodate. Existing supply is counted and its occupancy measured, because slips and racks already filled are not available demand, while a competitor at ninety-plus per cent occupancy carrying a waitlist is direct evidence of unmet demand. Permitted or announced supply is netted out, since it will compete during the subject’s lease-up. What remains is the supportable pool. Set the subject’s capacity against it and the required market share falls out.
The number matters because it converts an assumption into a test a credit officer can apply. A facility that needs a small single-digit share of an under-served vessel population, in a market where every competitor is full and holding a waitlist, is a different credit from one that needs a large share of a market with visible vacancy — even when both pro formas show the same stabilized occupancy. There is no universally applicable capture percentage and no industry rule of thumb that can be substituted for the count: the supportable pool has to be built from the specific market’s registrations, supply, and occupancy evidence.
Scale makes the point concrete. The firm’s completed Sarasota dry-stack boat storage feasibility study analyzed a $23,750,000 SBA 504 project with 437 total storage spaces, of which 350 were dry-stack boat positions within a 79,864-square-foot hurricane-rated building, with the remaining 87 spaces serving RV and trailer storage. Filling 350 rack positions requires a materially different share of the registered vessel population than filling a thirty-rack facility in the same market, which is why capacity is tested against the pool rather than against a target occupancy figure.
The two asset types share a customer but not a cost structure, and a model that treats them interchangeably will misstate both the revenue and the risk. Not every project carries every revenue stream described below; the study models only what the specific facility actually offers.
Wet-slip revenue is slip rent, priced annually or seasonally and differentiated by slip length and beam, with utilization varying through the season and, in northern and inland markets, a genuine off-season. The obligations that follow the revenue are physical and recurring: dock and pier maintenance, utility pedestals, bulkheads and seawalls, and dredging on a cycle that must be reserved for rather than treated as an occasional capital event. Water levels are an operating variable — tidal and surge exposure on the coast, reservoir drawdown inland — and storm exposure drives both insurance cost and the probability of an interruption year. These items are reserved for explicitly, because a marina model that omits dredging and seawall reserves will overstate coverage.
Dry-stack revenue is monthly rack rent by rack class, which produces a steadier and more predictable stream than seasonal slip rent, plus launch and retrieval activity. The cost structure is dominated by the building: rack systems and a wind-rated envelope in coastal zones represent a large fixed capital commitment that must be financed before a single tenant signs. Operations turn on forklift capacity, operator staffing, and launch turnaround at peak demand. Lease-up is the principal risk, because the full cost of the building is incurred on day one while occupancy builds over months, and enclosed storage commands a rate premium over open and covered alternatives that has to be supported by local rate evidence rather than assumed.
Both asset types can be supported by ancillary income — fuel sales and fuel margin, service and repair labour, haul-out, wash-down, ship’s store, and vessel rentals where the operator offers them. Ancillary income is analyzed on its own merits because it carries its own cost base and its own volatility; fuel in particular is a margin business whose contribution moves with volume and price, and it is modeled that way rather than as a fixed percentage uplift on rent.
Marine assets sit in locations that concentrate physical and regulatory risk, and a lender needs those risks priced into the projection rather than noted as caveats. The study examines them from the underwriting and feasibility perspective: it identifies the issue, establishes its cost and schedule consequence, and carries that consequence into the model. Wert-Berater does not perform engineering, surveying, environmental remediation, or legal services, and the study does not substitute for a licensed engineer’s report, a survey, a permit determination, or legal advice.
On the site itself, the analysis records the FEMA flood zone and base flood elevation, storm-surge exposure, and the applicable wind-design requirements, because in coastal markets a hurricane-rated rack building carries a materially higher cost per square foot than a comparable inland structure and that difference belongs in the capital budget. Existing marine infrastructure is assessed for remaining life and reserve requirement: dock and pier systems, pilings, bulkheads and seawalls, and the dredging history and expected cycle. Submerged-land rights or state leases, riparian access, and coastal permitting are identified as conditions with schedule risk, since a project cannot open ahead of its permits and delay is a modeled cost.
Environmental history is examined where the site has prior industrial or fuelling use, including the presence and condition of fuel storage and the scope of any Phase I environmental site assessment the lender requires. Utilities are checked for adequacy to the site, and insurance is treated as a major and volatile operating line in coastal markets rather than as a routine expense. For inland marinas, reservoir and lake-level policy is analyzed directly, because a drawdown regime that limits access for part of the year constrains both achievable rates and utilization in a way that coastal comparables will not reveal.
Four inputs account for the majority of coverage-ratio movement in a marina or dry-stack feasibility model. The sensitivity schedule tests each one independently and in combination so that a lender can see exactly how much cushion remains when more than one assumption moves against the project simultaneously.
Marina and dry-stack projects present underwriting considerations that differ in kind, not just degree, from standard commercial real estate. Lenders and agencies focus on several issues that a compliant feasibility study must address directly rather than acknowledge in passing.
Waterfront programs that combine slips or dry-stack with overnight sites carry a second revenue model, tested in the firm’s RV park, RV resort and campground feasibility study scope.
Under SBA SOP 50 10 8, a dry-stack facility is treated as special-purpose collateral because the structure has limited alternative use. The study must demonstrate that the project reaches and sustains the 1.15x operating and 1.00x global debt-service-coverage minimums under stress, and the liquidation analysis must address the collateral’s forced-sale value in a market where the buyer pool for a coastal rack facility is narrow. SBA reviewers also scrutinize whether the borrower’s equity injection is sourced from non-borrowed funds and whether any seller-held debt is on full standby.
USDA Business & Industry engagements for qualifying rural coastal communities require the study to confirm that the project serves a rural area as defined under the program and that the economic benefit — jobs, tax base, recreational access — is documented. The coverage standard and collateral logic follow the same principles, but the narrative must also address community need in terms the agency’s state office can carry to Washington.
Conventional lenders typically require 1.20x coverage at stabilization and place particular weight on the lease-up timeline because construction loans on marina projects carry drawn-out interest-reserve periods. The study addresses the absorption schedule with enough granularity that the lender can model the interest reserve against a realistic fill curve rather than a straight-line assumption. Environmental indemnity and flood-insurance cost are addressed as operating expenses, not footnotes.
Every conclusion resolves into a fully linked financial model delivered live to the client portal, so a reviewer can substitute any input and watch coverage move rather than take the narrative on trust. Revenue is built from the bottom up: wet-slip rent by length class and rack rent by rack class, each carried against an absorption schedule that runs from opening to stabilized occupancy rather than assuming stabilization at year one. Rate assumptions are supported by the competitive rate survey and escalated at a defensible rate, and ancillary income — fuel volume and margin, launch and retrieval, haul-out, service, wash-down, and ship’s store — is modeled only where the project offers it.
The expense structure carries payroll and burden at local wage rates, insurance at coastal market cost, dock and building maintenance, utilities, dredging and seawall reserves, management, and capital replacement reserves sized to the marine infrastructure actually in place. Debt service is modeled against the proposed structure at the proposed rate, and the model reports both operating and global debt-service coverage where the sponsor carries other obligations.
Sensitivity testing then flexes the variables that decide the outcome rather than applying a uniform haircut. Stabilized occupancy is reduced and the absorption period extended to model a slower lease-up; rates are held flat against escalating costs; fuel margin is compressed; insurance and maintenance are increased; and interest-rate stress is applied to the debt. The model reports the break-even occupancy, the rate level at which coverage fails, and how much headroom the base case holds against each — so the credit file records the distance to failure rather than a single favourable projection.
The engagement begins with a fee quote, delivered within one business day of an initial inquiry. The fee is fixed, quoted in advance, and not contingent on the study’s finding. There is no scenario in which the fee changes because the analysis reaches an unfavorable conclusion. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and reviewing agency; the borrower is the client of record but not the party whose interest governs the determination.
Once the engagement is confirmed, a data-room checklist is issued. For a marina or dry-stack project, the data room typically includes site control documentation, zoning and coastal-construction permits or pre-application correspondence, the architect’s rack-layout plan with tier counts by length class, the general contractor’s hard-cost budget, environmental and geotechnical reports, any existing fuel-dock permits, and three years of operating history if the project involves an acquisition or expansion of an existing facility. A complete data room triggers the delivery clock.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from a complete data room. Rush delivery is available when a credit committee or agency deadline requires it. The finished engagement comprises the bound narrative report and the fully linked Excel model. Both are published to a secure client portal where the financial model remains live: a reviewer can change any input — rack count, rate, fuel margin, interest rate — and watch every downstream calculation update in real time. No values are hardcoded. The portal access does not expire at delivery, so the model remains available through the lender’s credit process and any subsequent agency review.
The fee is fixed and quoted within one business day of inquiry. It is not contingent on the study’s finding and does not change if the analysis reaches an unfavorable conclusion. Because marina projects vary in rack count, program complexity, and whether a fuel dock or service yard is included, the quote is project-specific. Contact the firm with a brief description of the project and the lender’s program to receive a firm number.
Standard delivery is ten to fifteen business days from receipt of a complete data room. The clock starts when all required documents — site control, rack-layout plans, construction budget, permits, and operating history if applicable — are in hand. Rush delivery is available when a credit committee or agency deadline requires a shorter window. Incomplete data rooms are the most common cause of delay.
Three factors distinguish dry-stack from conventional self-storage. First, demand is bounded by a countable vessel population in a defined radius, not by a broad consumer market. Second, the structure is special-purpose collateral with a narrow forced-sale buyer pool, which compresses liquidation value. Third, ancillary revenue — fuel, launch, haul-out — is material to coverage but volatile, driven by vessel-use frequency that shifts with fuel prices and weather. Each factor requires explicit treatment in the feasibility model.
SBA SOP 50 10 8 governs what an independent feasibility study must contain and the coverage thresholds it must demonstrate. A study prepared to that standard — with the required debt-service-coverage analysis, liquidation scenarios, and an explicit statement of conditions — is structured to meet SBA review requirements. No firm can guarantee that any agency will approve a specific loan; the study’s role is to provide the evidence the lender needs to make and defend its credit decision.
Yes. USDA B&I engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 and address the program’s rural-area eligibility requirement, coverage standards, collateral logic, and community-benefit documentation. The study is structured so the lender’s state office can submit it to the national office without exception items. The firm has completed marina engagements under the B&I program, including projects on inland waterways that qualify under the rural-area definition.
The standard data room for a marina project includes site control documents, zoning confirmation and any coastal construction permits or pre-application correspondence, the architect’s rack-layout plan with tier counts by vessel length, the general contractor’s hard-cost budget, environmental and geotechnical reports, fuel-dock permits where applicable, and three years of operating statements if the project is an acquisition or expansion. A checklist is issued at engagement confirmation so nothing is missed.
The consultant is engaged by the lender, CDC, or agency rather than the borrower, and determines whether a proposed marina or dry-stack facility can fill its slips and racks at the assumed rates quickly enough to service the debt. The work covers market-area definition by cruising or trailering radius, the registered-vessel population segmented by length class, a physical census of competing wet-slip, dry-stack and trailered-storage supply with occupancy and rates, the required capture rate, absorption to stabilized occupancy, slip and rack revenue plus ancillary income, marine development and infrastructure cost, flood and coastal risk, debt-service coverage, and sensitivity testing. The determination and its conditions are stated plainly, and the fee is fixed rather than contingent on the finding.
Demand starts from a countable population rather than a growth rate. The market area is defined by navigable access — channel depth, bridge clearance, and run time to open water or a destination — and the registered vessel population within that geography is established from state registration records. That population is segmented by length class and hull type, and only the vessels the subject’s slips can physically accommodate by length, beam and draft enter the addressable pool. Boats already berthed at competing marinas, at private residential docks, or in dry storage are netted out where the evidence supports it, leaving the supportable pool the subject must draw from. There is no universal demand percentage; the pool is built market by market.
The method mirrors the wet-slip analysis but with a land-based catchment. The market area is a realistic trailering radius governed by road access and the distance owners will drive to a launch, rather than a cruising radius. Registered vessels within that radius are segmented by length class against the rack bay dimensions the building will actually have, which is a hard constraint because rack sizes are fixed at construction and cannot be changed later. Competing rack inventory is counted with its occupancy, waitlists and monthly rates, open and covered trailered storage is treated as a substitute where it genuinely competes, and permitted supply is netted out. What remains sets the capture rate the subject requires.
State vessel registration records are the demand universe for both wet-slip and dry-stack analysis. They are obtained at the county level and, where the state publishes it, by ZIP code, then broken down by vessel length class and hull type. That breakdown does the analytical work: it establishes how many vessels in the market area fall within the length classes the subject can accommodate, which is the only portion of the population that represents addressable demand. Registration trends over several years also indicate whether the boating population is growing, flat, or declining, which informs the absorption schedule. Registrations are a starting universe, not a demand conclusion — they must still be reduced by existing supply and substitutes.
Occupancy is projected through an absorption schedule rather than assumed at stabilization. The schedule runs from opening through to stabilized occupancy over a defined number of months, and its pace is supported by evidence from the competitive set: how full comparable facilities are, whether they carry waitlists, how recently delivered capacity in the market leased up, and the subject’s relative location, access and facility quality. Seasonality is applied where the market has a genuine off-season, and permitted or announced competing supply is netted in over the period it will actually open. The stabilized figure is then stress-tested downward, and the model reports the occupancy at which debt-service coverage fails.
Conceptually it is the subject’s slip or rack capacity divided by the supportable demand pool — the share of available vessels the facility must sign to reach its assumed occupancy. Building it requires each input separately: the total registered vessel population, reduced to the length classes the subject can accommodate, less vessels already held by existing supply, less private dock accommodation where supportable, less capacity that permitted competitors will absorb. Set the subject’s capacity against what remains and the required share follows. Its value to a lender is that it converts an occupancy assumption into a test: needing a small share of an under-served market with full competitors and waitlists is a very different credit from needing a large share of a market with visible vacancy.
Reviewers want a demand universe that was counted rather than estimated, supply that was physically censused with occupancy and rates rather than assumed, a stated required capture rate they can judge, and an absorption schedule instead of day-one stabilization. They look for marine-specific costs to be present and reserved for — dredging cycles, seawalls and bulkheads, dock replacement, and coastal insurance — because their absence is the most common way a marina model overstates coverage. They look for ancillary income to be modeled only where the project offers it, sensitivity testing that identifies break-even occupancy and the rate at which coverage fails, and a consultant whose fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency rather than to the borrower.
Where the project operates a fuel dock, yes, and it is modeled as a margin business rather than as a percentage uplift on slip rent. The analysis estimates fuel volume from the vessel population served, their length classes and typical consumption, and launch or trip frequency across the season, then applies a margin per gallon supported by local evidence rather than a national assumption. The cost side carries fuel storage and dispensing equipment, environmental compliance and monitoring obligations, insurance, and staffing at the dock. Because volume and margin both move, fuel is stress-tested separately in sensitivity. Projects without a fuel dock carry no fuel revenue in the model — the study does not assume revenue streams the facility will not operate.
Yes, from the underwriting and feasibility perspective. The study records the FEMA flood zone and base flood elevation, storm-surge exposure, and the wind-design requirements applicable at the site, and carries their consequences into the numbers. In coastal wind zones a hurricane-rated rack building costs materially more per square foot than a comparable inland structure, and that difference belongs in the capital budget tested against the loan request rather than in a footnote. Coastal insurance is modeled as a major and volatile operating line. The study analyzes these matters as cost, schedule and risk inputs; it is not an engineering report, and Wert-Berater does not perform engineering, surveying or permit determinations.
Yes. Marine infrastructure obligations are among the items most often missing from a sponsor’s own projection, and their omission is a frequent reason a marina pro forma will not survive review. The analysis assesses the condition and remaining life of dock and pier systems, pilings, bulkheads and seawalls, and establishes the dredging history and expected cycle for the basin and approach channel. Those obligations are then carried as funded reserves in the operating model rather than treated as occasional capital events, because a facility that must dredge periodically has a recurring cost whether or not it falls in the projection year. Where the remaining life of existing infrastructure is short, the replacement is modeled within the horizon.
They analyze different assets with different demand universes. A marina or dry-stack study is water-oriented: demand comes from the registered vessel population within a cruising or trailering radius, segmented by vessel length class against slip or rack dimensions, and the cost structure carries docks, dredging, seawalls, marine forklifts, wind-rated buildings and coastal insurance. A land-based RV and boat storage study analyzes open, covered and enclosed vehicle parking within a road drive-time trade area, where demand is driven by household RV and boat ownership and by residential and HOA parking restrictions, and the economics follow self-storage-style lease-up. A project with no marine component is analyzed under the firm’s RV and boat storage feasibility studies, not as a marina.
Qualify a project. Tell us about the project and the program. We will tell you the truth about it — scope, timeline, and fee confirmed before work begins.
Schedule a Zoom Call →Legal disclosure. Wert-Berater, Inc. offices are mailing addresses only. Following the COVID-19 pandemic the firm has elected to work remotely; its office locations receive mail and are not staffed for visitors or in-person meetings. Headquarters mailing address: 1968 South Coast Hwy, Ste 2382, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.
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.