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Plans for a Mount Airy Kohl's have been dropped after disinterest from both the town and the developer.

"They are no longer pursuing that," said Kelly Ziad, town planner.

Baltimore-based Vanguard Equities was the contract purchaser of the 21-acre property on Center Street, and was analyzing it for a Kohl's and shopping center.

Len Weinberg of Vanguard Equities presented plans to the town's Planning Commission in January, but commission members reacted coolly. Weinberg's team saw an 88,000-square-foot Kohl's, a restaurant, bank, and other stores such as a Petco or Famous Footwear surrounding a parking lot, and a fountain to create a town square feel.

If approved, the shopping center would have been constructed along Center Street, which is planned to be extended to connect Main Street and Md. Route 27.

The plans did not coincide with the town's vision of keeping commercial activity near Interstate 70, said Mount Airy Planning Commission Chairman Chris Everich.

"It's clearly incompatible," he said in January. "The idea of running a suburban big box store up further on [Md. Route] 27 and shoehorning it into this area is a mistake."

Planning Commissioner Fred Goundry agreed. "We're a little town that is growing to be a big town in a short time," he said in January, adding that a big-box store would draw more traffic. "Adding more traffic will screw up the concept of what we have in mind. You have to be careful in how to approach this."

On Tuesday, Everich said he hadn't heard from the developer since the commission was approached in January. Weinberg said in an e-mail Wednesday that the group was no longer the contract purchaser for the site. "Kohl's was no longer able to pay the kind of rent needed to make the financing work on the project," he said.  "Without Kohl's or another anchor tenant, we could not move forward and the seller's did not want to extend our contract."

The group hopes to work on the site in the future.

According to Ziad, Center Street is still planned to become a through-street some day. "It's still in the town's plans to extend Center Street," Ziad said. "I don't think that's going to change."

E-mail Angie Cochrun at acochrun@gazette.net.