Monterey building gets new owner, patriotic purpose.

As Nader Agha steps into the lobby of his building at 449 Alvarado St. in Monterey, a stray, orange-coated cat strolls in from the opposite direction.

“He just walked in and took over,” Agha says, adding that the cat – whom Agha named “Cat-o” – has been there about two months.

In the coming weeks, Cat-o will no longer be the only new tenant in the building, which has been mostly vacant for years. As the Weekly went to print, the Dan and Lillian King Foundation was set to close escrow on the property for $3 million.

The vision of the foundation’s board – of which Agha is a member – is to name the building “Constitution Hall” and transform it into a hub that educates the county’s youth about the U.S. Constitution.

“We have the best document ever put together,” Agha says of the Constitution. “It is the envy of everyone around the world, but we don’t know how to use it.”

The foundation started after Lillian King, a close friend of Agha and fellow fan of the Constitution, passed away in 2011 at the age of 103. King left her estate of about $8 million to create the foundation, which has a mission of advancing constitutional education.

For the last three years, the foundation has held an annual, constitution-themed essay contest for eighth graders at a few local middle schools, and sent the winners (and their teachers) on a free trip to Washington, D.C. But now, the vision has grown.

“We were trying to figure out a way to reach more students,” says Ron Weitzman, the foundation’s treasurer.

The idea to purchase the building came from former Monterey City Councilwoman Nancy Selfridge, who sits on the foundation’s board. Selfridge says that once the possibility of purchasing the site came up, Agha, a board member, was kept out of the process.

Touring the building on a recent weekday, Selfridge explains the vision for the program: The foundation will bus in eighth-graders from all over the county, feed them lunch and then have a guest speaker that will teach them about the Constitution.

“See, you could have a nice lecture up here,” Selfridge says, motioning to a corner of the building’s vacant second floor.

Selfridge says the foundation hopes to pay for day-to-day expenses by leasing out parts of the building, and that the foundation is in negotiations with a local restaurateur to take over part of the space.

She also emphasizes that Agha donated $1 million of the $3 million purchase price, and that he will pay the foundation rent to keep his coin shop on the first floor.

The negotiations with the restaurateur are nearly complete. The board won’t identify the restaurateur, but Weitzman says they have agreed to prepare lunch for visiting students and serve at least one dish from the “era of the Constitution.”

In the immediate future, the foundation agreed to donate the building’s lobby to accommodate First Night Monterey, which will use the space as a hub for art activities.

“It’s been a challenge this year, losing the Monterey Conference Center,” says First Night Executive Director Ellen Martin. By way of thanks, she says she and her team will try to incorporate the Constitution into the activities.