Cathedral Candle Co. addition creates more “functional” space

SYRACUSE — The new addition to Cathedral Candle Company’s operations connects the company’s existing office building to the original factory at 510 Kirkpatrick St. on Syracuse’s North Side.

Cathedral Candle has produced church candles since 1897.

The project created more “functional” space to meet Cathedral Candle’s need for increased shipping and storage space for inventory as it supplies candles to churches throughout the U.S. and around the world, the company says. 

“Increasing our operational efficiencies, especially in shipping and inventorying product, is critical to ensuring that we can remain competitive in what’s an evolving marketplace,” Louis Steigerwald III, president of Cathedral Candle Company, said. Steigerwald spoke at a Dec. 7 ceremony as the company formally opened its new three-story, 14,700-square-foot expansion.

“The new building is this area that we’re in right here … we have a basement underneath it and we have two floors up above that you can see from the outside,” he added. 

The $2.5 million investment was privately funded and is part of a multiphase master-development plan, Cathedral Candle says. 

MCK Building Associates Inc. of Syracuse handled the construction work on the project, and King + King Architects, also of Syracuse, designed the new addition, Steigerwald said in his remarks during the ceremony.

Steigerwald also credited the company’s 80 employees, many of whom live in the surrounding neighborhood, “just as they did 120 years ago.”

“Their talent is the main reason … the big reason that we really want to stay here on this site in this neighborhood and in this community. They’re a resource that you can’t find anyplace else,” he said.

Steigerwald’s great-grandfather, Jacob Steigerwald, founded Cathedral Candle Company in 1897.

The company is the longest-continuous member of CenterState CEO, which started as the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce.

From its start, Cathedral Candle has been a religious-candle manufacturer and has a network of distributors across the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, Steigerwald added. Those distributors sell the candles to all denominations of Christian churches around the globe.

The company has an international footprint, but notes that the original brick factory on Kirkpatrick Street remains “a part of its core manufacturing facility.”

Cathedral Candle says more than 90 percent of sales come from outside of New York, and the company has previously provided candles for U.S. visits made by the Pope.

“So, we really are an exporter to the world,” Steigerwald noted.

The event took place on the feast day of Saint Ambrose, patron saint of candle-makers.

“We just thought how appropriate to be able to have it on today’s date,” said Steigerwald. The festivities also included a ribbon- cutting with Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh and a ceremonial blessing by Bishop Robert Cunningham of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse.