Coastal Enterprises’ (CEI) founder and Chief Executive Officer Ron Phillips was feeling like the captain of a ship Oct. 15.

“I want to be the last one off,” he said.

On Oct. 15 and 16, the move was on to the nonprofit’s new headquarters in Brunswick. Plans have been in the works for more than two years.

CEI’s three downtown Wiscasset properties, the Haggett, Tucker and Port Wiscasset buildings, remain on the market.

CEI will stay on in town with one full-time employee at a new office at 297 Bath Road. Other CEI staff will come and go from that office during the week, to meet with clients about lending or business counseling, Phillips said. The office is in the same building where Lincoln County Regional Planning Commission (LCRPC), a longtime partner of CEI’s, has moved from space at CEI.

Prior to the Brunswick move, 20 to 30 CEI employees had been based in Wiscasset; CEI’s departure from downtown, and the change to Wiscasset serving as a branch instead of the main office, do not change the fact that the town and Lincoln County are where CEI got its start, Phillips said.

He hopes the downtown properties can now contribute to Wiscasset with new uses that serve the town well, in ways they could not in their decades as office space. Asked about the village grocery store idea that has gotten renewed attention recently, Phillips said: “I hope something of that nature, and that value, can occur.”

Ken Kennedy-Patterson, of 30 Water St., said that how he will feel about losing CEI as a neighbor will depend on what replaces it. “I’m kind of anxious to see what goes in,” he said in his driveway, yards from a United Van Lines truck parked on the street for CEI’s move.

He would like to see a co-op next door for craftsmen, with a gallery downstairs and work space upstairs, Kennedy-Patterson said. “I think we have enough restaurants. I think we have enough antiques.”

Before announcing plans for a Federal Street, Brunswick, headquarters in August 2013, CEI spent a year looking at how to consolidate some of its locations; the key factor in going with the Brunswick-Topsham area was its access to the interstate, a CEI official has said.

“Next week, we’ll be working in Brunswick,” Phillips said in his Water Street, Wiscasset office Oct. 15. He had his laptop open and was still trying to get some of his regular work done during the move.

Phillips, of Waldoboro, will see CEI through its next several months before he retires as CEO as announced in June 2015. The search continues for his successor in the job he’s held for nearly 40 years. CEI has hired the Boston recruiting firm Isaacson, Miller to help in the search, Phillips said.