PHIPPSBURG

A wharf off Wallace Circle on West Point, used for generations by local fishermen, went up for auction at 11 a.m. this morning.

Live Lobster Co., which defaulted on a loan to TD Bank, had been leasing the pier, which includes a building and lobster tanks, according to Phippsburg Code Enforcement Officer Lee Rainey.

The Phippsburg property is one of several lobster processing facilities to be auctioned this week as part of a bank foreclosure action.

On Wednesday, Live Lobster’s former processing plant in Prospect Harbor was sold at auction to the owner of Connecticut-based lobster company Garbo Lobster. Tranzon Auction Properties, which ran the auction for lender TD Bank, said Garbo submitted the high bid of $900,000 for the plant.

Garbo Lobster will co-own the plant with East Coast Seafood in Lynn, Mass., with hopes of re-opening it for lobster processing.

Rainey said the Phippsburg pier could continue to serve a network of buyers in the Midcoast for the Prospect Harbor factory, which is 3 1/2 hours north.

“It’s always been a working wharf for lobster and fish,” he said. “They’ve been buying lobsters there from the local fishermen for years.”

Live Lobster bought the former Stinson Seafood cannery after it closed in 2010. Live Lobster had up to 70 employees in the summer of 2011, but shut down operations in March.

TD Bank claims Live Lobster owes it $3.4 million.

After Wednesday’s auction, David Garbo, president and CEO of Garbo Lobster, said he and East Coast Seafood President and CEO Michael Tourkistas are optimistic about restarting the Prospect Harbor plant and about Maine’s growing processing sector.

Both also said, however, that they were not sure how soon the Prospect Harbor plant might be reopened, or at what capacity.

The plant will need investment — with state and federal assistance — in order to make it a viable endeavor, according to Garbo.

“We obviously see some potential in the plant,” Garbo said.

“We’re going to work together with Dave Garbo and see if we can make this work,” Tourkistas said.

Garbo Lobster is based in Groton, Conn., and has a facility in Hancock, Maine, about 15 miles from Gouldsboro.

Gouldsboro Selectman Roger Bowen said Garbo has a good reputation and townspeople are hopeful he can a make go of it. When Bumble Bee closed the sardine cannery, it cost 130 people their jobs and marked the end of Maine’s long sardine-processing era. Bumble Bee then sold the factory to Live Lobster Co.

“He knows the business, hence there’s no need to develop a new business plan,” Bowen said. “He has a good reputation among lobster buyers and I’m hoping, as we all are locally, that he will bring back and restore some of those jobs that were lost.”

INFORMATION from Bangor Daily News Staff Writer Bill Trotter and The Associated Press was included in this report.