Watertown business Timeless Frames growing back from COVID-19 pandemic

“We’re alive and kicking,” she said.

The company currently employs 30 workers at its Fisher Road plant. She’d like to add another 10. “I have a great team,” she said.

Right before COVID-19 hit, the company laid off 40 workers after one of its major clients, the shuttering A.C. Moore chain of stores, stopped accepting orders.

It was a big loss.

With the state designating the company “nonessential,” the Fisher Road plant remained closed for two months during the pandemic. Since reopening, Timeless Frames has steadily grown back nearly to where it was back in 2019 and has contracts with major retailers, she said.

This week, the company is busy working to get product out the door to an unidentified customer, she said.

The company still manufactures solid-wood picture frames, starting with rough-cut lumber and going through a molding process that consists of cutting, shaping, assembly, joining and finishing.

The assembly process includes either adding artwork or glass to the frame, along with “photos with those smiling people that are put up on a walls,” she joked.

Travelers have probably seen the company’s other products in hotel lobbies and hotel rooms and on hotel walls, she said.

Retained by third parties and architects, the company provides its clients an assortment of mirrors and artwork that can be found in Hilton Garden Inns, Hampton Inns, Marriott hotels, among others.

Timeless Frames also makes metal photo frames, she said.

David J. Zembiec, CEO of Jefferson County Economic Development, said he’s heard the company has bounced back from COVID.

“They’re an innovative and market savvy company,” he said.

In the past three years, Timeless Frames has consolidated operations from three buildings to one in the corporate park and only occupies 1 Fisher Road, where it was housed when she purchased the manufacturer in 1999.

In July, businessman Alex Morgia purchased 22419 Fisher Road, where he’s moved operations for his e-commerce logistics company from another former Timeless Frames property in the corporate park.

He purchased the 72,559-square-foot building for $2.1 million.

That’s where Monthly Boxer, which provides warehousing, packing, promotion and other services to internet retailers, ships about more than 20,000 products a month for its affiliates and its clients, is now housed.

The sale of the building also eliminates all of Timeless Frames’ debt, Ms. Weber said.

Monthly Boxer was previously located in 22476 Fisher Road, an 82,000-square-foot structure that he purchased in 2019 for $1.7 million after moving the company from Syracuse.

Mr. Morgia moved out of 22476 Fisher Road — formerly owned by McGrann Paper Co. — because his tenant, Knowlton Technologies, needed more space, he said.

Knowlton also is renting space in the building that he purchased in July, but Mr. Morgia also is looking for tenants for office space still available in that building.

Timeless Frames’ workforce has fluctuated over the years. In 2015, the company had 163 employees after buying out a Virginia framing business.

The company had only seven employees and occupied only one building at the corporate park when Ms. Weber bought it in 1999.