A Maryland-based architecture and planning firm with a bustling office in Wilmington has expanded its footprint in the Port City.

Becker Morgan Group has moved into a bigger office, Suite 120 of the new building at 3333 Jaeckle Drive off Randall Parkway, about a block from its previous address.

The company opened its first official office in Wilmington in 2007, said Ernie Olds, vice president and one of the principal owners of Becker Morgan Group.

"Business is getting better. Construction, of course, is what we live on," Olds said, "and I think everybody can see just by driving around how much construction is going on."

He said the firm serves clients in Wilmington and within a four-hour radius of the Port City, up to the Virginia line and down to Charleston, South Carolina, as well as inland to the Charlotte outskirts.

"We've got projects as far as those corners," Olds said.

Local projects include Corning Credit Union, which is under construction by McKinley Building Corp. on South 17th Street; the Embassy Suites at the Wilmington Convention Center; and two fire department stations, one in New Hanover County in Ogden and one on Shipyard Boulevard in the city of Wilmington.

Becker Morgan Group also works with New Hanover County Schools, including the Roland-Grise Middle School renovation project that is expected to wrap up this summer, Olds said.

The firm had planned to move to its new office space earlier, but Hurricane Florence in September "got in everybody's way," Olds said. But the storm has made building owners more cognizant of the need for hurricane-resistant design, he said.

Becker Morgan Group employs 10 people in Wilmington, including four architects, and more than 90 companywide, Olds said.

Steve Hall, partner with Wilmington-based commercial real estate firm Maus, Warwick, Matthews & Co., represented the landlord, Abinto Corp., in the lease to Becker Morgan Group.