Cathedral Candle Company formally opens building expansion

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Cathedral Candle Company — a candle-making company that has produced church candles since 1897 — has expanded at its location on Syracuse’s North side.

The company on Friday formally opened a new three-story, 14,700-square-foot expansion at 510 Kirkpatrick St.

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

MCK Building Associates Inc. of Syracuse handled the construction work on the project, and King + King Architects, also of Syracuse, designed the new addition, Louis Steigerwald, III, president of Cathedral Candle, said during his remarks at the Friday-morning ceremony.

The new addition connects the company’s existing office building to the original factory, creating 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.

“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,” Steigerwald said in speaking of the new addition during his remarks.

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

From its start, the company 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 candlemakers.

“We just thought how appropriate to be able to have it on today’s date,” said Steigerwald.

It 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.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com