Unalaska, AK – Icicle Seafoods will be back in Adak starting this summer.

On Friday, Icicle announced that it will be taking over the on-shore processing facility that was once run by Adak Fisheries, a company that has since gone bankrupt. Icicle had previously processed fish out in Adak, and plant landlord Aleut Enterprise approached the company to see if they had any interest in leasing the island's vacant facilities. Icicle subsequently signed a 25-year lease for the facilities, and the company hopes to start processing Pacific cod as early as this summer.

"The primary target date is to be ready for the 2012 cod season, but we do have people on the ground now really assessing the condition of the plant and readying it to operate," says Icicle President Dennis Guhlke. "Our hope is that it will be operational sometime this summer - July 1 would be a great target date - but much will depend on how things come together over the next couple of months."

Guhlke says that they plan to have between 15 and 25 people working out there this summer, and that they should be employing 100 people once the facility is fully staffed. He adds that in addition to focusing on Pacific cod, Icicle also plans to process some halibut and black cod.

Adak city manager Layton Lockett expects the presence of Icicle to be a boon to the city's economy. He says that having a shore-based processing facility should help provide some long-term economic stability and increase the city's revenue through the raw fish tax.

"A lease like that gives us the confidence to be able to create budgets and make decisions based on having a long-term facility in place," says Lockett.

Lockett adds that the deal may also help foster commerce by creating demand for a larger support sector.

The opening of an Icicle plant in Adak could also have an effect on the pace of the Pacific cod fishery. Trent Hartill is a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game who helps manage the state-waters fishery. He says that while the opening of Icicle's Adak plant could help speed up the Pacific cod B season this summer, it's still too early to tell what the actual impact will be.

"There may be an increase in effort or interest from the the 60-and-under fleet to go out there knowing that there is a shore-based processor," says Hartill. "But as of now, I haven't heard of any boats that are interested in going out there just because of a new processor."

The processing facility at Adak has been vacant since 2009, and at the center of multiple legal disputes between Aleut Enterprise, the City of Adak, and former tenants Adak Fisheries. Wesley Loy's Deckboss has more on the Adak Fisheries legal situation.