Light manufacturing loans.

Light industrial covers a lot of ground. A fabrication shop, a small food production facility, a commercial printer, an electronics assembler, a bottling operation. What these buildings share is a mix of uses under one roof: production space where the work happens, warehouse where the material and finished goods sit, and a modest office at the front.

That mix is the reason lenders look at these properties differently than a straight distribution box. A pure warehouse serves anybody who needs to store and ship. A manufacturing building serves whoever needs the specific combination of power, clear height, floor capacity, loading, and layout that it happens to have. The narrower that fit, the more carefully a lender sizes the loan.

Power comes up first in almost every conversation. Amperage and three-phase service determine what equipment can run in the building, and upgrading service from the utility is neither fast nor cheap. A building with generous existing power is worth more to the next occupant than the rent comparables alone suggest, and a building without it has a ceiling.

Most of these are owner-user deals

The defining feature of this category is who buys the buildings. More often than not it is the company operating inside it. A manufacturer that has outgrown its leased space, wants to control its footprint, and would rather build equity than pay rent to a landlord.

That routes the financing down a different path. When your business occupies enough of the square footage, the transaction is owner-occupied, and SBA and bank owner-user programs apply. Those programs evaluate the operating company alongside the building, which usually favors a business with a real operating history. They also tend to carry longer fixed terms than an investment file would reach, which matters when you plan to be in the building for a decade or more.

The requirement is genuine occupancy by your own business, and the threshold differs for an existing building versus one you construct. It is worth confirming your specific numbers before you sign a purchase contract, because it decides which programs you can apply to at all.

Environmental review is part of the process

Manufacturing sites get a closer look. Lenders will want to understand what was made there before, whether chemicals were stored or used, whether there are floor drains and where they go, and what the neighboring properties have done historically.

This is routine and most deals clear it. What causes problems is discovering an issue in week four that the borrower already knew about. If there is a history on the site, tell us at the start. There are lenders comfortable with documented conditions and remediation plans, and there are lenders who are not, and we would rather aim at the right group from day one.

Send us the building specs, your occupancy plans, and what the operation actually does. That is enough to tell you whether this is an SBA conversation, a bank conversation, or an investment file. No credit pull, no cost to start.