Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA RD Instruction 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. More than 4,000 studies since 1998 covering $40.2 billion in evaluated project value.
Retail feasibility turns on trade-area capture: the gravity of the site against competing nodes, the spending power inside realistic drive-time bands, and the durability of the tenant mix against e-commerce displacement. For anchored and unanchored centers alike, the study quantifies retail leakage and surplus by category, tests proposed rents against the sales volumes tenants can actually achieve at the location, and evaluates co-tenancy and lease-rollover risk. For single-tenant and pad-site development, the analysis focuses on the credit and unit economics of the specific operator the income stream depends on.
The methodology combines Census and ACS demographic bands, ESRI-grade drive-time analysis, state retail sales tax data where published, traffic counts from the state DOT, and a physical competitive census conducted at the category level. Rent conclusions are benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld operator margins so that the underwritten rent is one the tenant's profit-and-loss statement can sustain — a discipline that separates a defensible study from a broker pro forma.
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. Retail reaches us through every program we serve: SBA 504 for owner-operators acquiring or building their premises, USDA B&I for rural retail anchors, and conventional lending for investor-owned centers, each with its own coverage minimums and collateral logic the study addresses directly.
The firm's retail work includes dual-tenant retail development, franchise QSR co-tenancy, and wine and spirits anchored projects, among them a $3,659,200 SBA 504 dual-tenant building in Grain Valley, Missouri. 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.
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.
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