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For the second time in three years, the county Historic Preservation Commission rejected a plan for a retail building in the Clarksburg Historic District next to the Clarksburg Animal Hospital, saying it does not fit the character of the surrounding community.

The owner of the project declined a suggestion that he withdraw his application from immediate vote to work with staff on refinements to the proposal, saying it was not economically viable to make the changes the commission wanted.

"We've spent almost one and a half years working with the community," Joe Buffington of Buffington Enterprises II LLC of Olney said in a phone interview afterwards. "We came up with a design and uses the community wanted."

The commission believed the design of the proposed building "was incompatible with the proposed district," said Scott Whipple, staff supervisor for the commission.

Specifically, the commission thought the two-story, 7,500-square-foot building containing offices, stores and a restaurant would be too tall and too large. It also thought the 73 parking spaces should be reduced to 63.

The building would have a restaurant with seating for 100 and a bar, two 1,000-square-foot stores on the first floor and offices for Buffington's real estate company on the second floor.

"The lower roof couldn't be done with the restaurant mechanicals," Buffington said. "They want to take away more parking and reduce the size of the building – economically, it's not feasible."

The proposed building would sit on a nearly 1-acre lot on Frederick Road across the street from Redgrave Place. Half the lot is zoned for commercial use and half for residential, which limits the placement of the building on the site. The residential portion would be used for parking.

"The size of the building they're suggesting would have cost the same amount of money [to build], but wouldn't bring in enough income," Buffington said. "After the first consultation we squeezed the building as much as we could."

Buffington bought the vacant lot after the previous owner's design was rejected by the commission in 2005.

"We've had about seven iterations [of the design] based on community input," Buffington said. "We took the community's input very strongly and incorporated it every time.

The Clarksburg Chamber of Commerce supported Buffington's proposal.

"I like the idea of retail and a restaurant there to bring in traffic," said chamber President Pat Darby, who owns undeveloped property across the street from the Buffington parcel.

The proposal also included the installation of two brick retaining walls ranging from more than 3 feet high on the south side to more than 6 feet high on the north side.

The building used every bit of developable area on the site, which gave it an appearance that is not in keeping with the character of the historic commercial building patterns in the district, staff told Buffington at a preliminary consultation in September.

The retaining walls would alter the character of the historic district when viewed from Frederick Road, they said.

"This has the potential to be a very important development in the historic district and the commission wanted to work with the applicant to get it right," Whipple said.

Buffington has not decided if he will take the proposal as it stands to the county Planning Board for approval.