Homer Spit seafood plant lease passes to Silver Bay at unchanged $69,877 rent

Silver Bay Seafoods-Valdez, LLC now holds the ground lease on the Homer Spit processing site, and the rent the city collects does not change. The Homer City Council adopted Resolution 26-053 on Monday, Aug. 10, assigning the lease on Lots 41 and 42 of the Homer Spit Amended and approving, retroactively, an earlier change of control at OBI Seafoods, LLC: Silver Bay's acquisition of Icicle Seafoods' membership interest in OBI. It passed on consent, without discussion.

Silver Bay bought Icicle's 50 percent stake in OBI on April 25, 2025. The lease requires council approval above 25 percent.

The lease terms carry over intact. The twenty-year ground lease runs through Dec. 31, 2036, with options for two consecutive five-year extensions, at an initial annual base rent of $69,876.96. That figure matches the annual base rent the city listed for the same 128,971 square feet of Spit frontage when the lease last changed hands in 2020.

The site has now had three operators in under a decade. The city first leased the lots to Icicle Seafoods, Inc. in January 2017, amended the agreement in 2018, then approved assignment to OBI Seafoods through Resolution 20-043 in May 2020. Icicle conveyed its remaining interest in the improvements and fixtures to OBI by quitclaim deed in March 2025. The deed preceded that ownership change by a month.

The North Pacific Fisheries Association, representing about 75 Homer fishing operations, wrote in support, the only public comment.

City Manager Melissa Jacobsen recommended approval in a memorandum dated Aug. 3, after a review that began with a request from SBS Vessel Company, LLC on Oct. 30, 2025. Her memo describes Silver Bay's regional structure of separate Alaska limited liability companies, including entities for False Pass, Kodiak, Metlakatla, Naknek, Southeast and Valdez. "Silver Bay Seafoods-Valdez, LLC currently owns and operates facilities in Homer, Seward, Cordova, and Valdez," Jacobsen said in the memo.

The city records do not address staffing or operating plans for the Homer plant under the new lessee.