Where can I put a large format retail in Arlington County, VA?

“large format retail” matches 2 uses this ordinance names separately. We do not choose between them — they can have different answers, so every one is shown.

Large-format retail
Large-format retail establishments

Large-format retail

Allowed only with a discretionary approval in 6 districts

These require a hearing or an approval from the county. They are not a “no”, and they are not a “yes” either.

District	Properties loaded	Code	What says so
C-1 the use table's own cell	51	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "C-1", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
C-2 the use table's own cell	266	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "C-2", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
C-3 the use table's own cell	84	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "C-3", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
C-O-A the use table's own cell	35	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "C-O-A", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
C-R the use table's own cell	16	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "C-R", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
MU-VS the use table's own cell	2	U	Sec. 7.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 7.1.2 on PDF page 89, row "Large-format retail", column "MU-VS", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).

Large-format retail establishments

Allowed only with a discretionary approval in 3 districts

These require a hearing or an approval from the county. They are not a “no”, and they are not a “yes” either.

District	Properties loaded	Code	What says so
CM the use table's own cell	30	U	Sec. 8.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 8.1.2 on PDF page 159, row "Large-format retail establishments", column "CM", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
M-1 the use table's own cell	42	U	Sec. 8.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 8.1.2 on PDF page 159, row "Large-format retail establishments", column "M-1", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).
M-2 the use table's own cell	2	U	Sec. 8.1.2 Read from the use table: Table 8.1.2 on PDF page 159, row "Large-format retail establishments", column "M-2", reads "U" (U = Special exception -- requires use permit approval (Sec. 15.4)).

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This answer is good through June 13, 2026 — that is the date the ordinance we hold runs to, as published by Arlington County. We last checked with the county on September 14, 2026 and found nothing newer. That is a check on that date, not a promise about today.

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What this does not cover

38,683 properties are loaded, county-wide. The county’s parcel record gives a street address but no ZIP code, so there is no ZIP breakdown to give and none is shown.
A further 6,249 properties carry a parcel zone code this page cannot match to a single column of the use table: C (151 variants, e.g. C-1-O;C-2), C-O (61 variants, e.g. C-O-1.0;C-O-1.5;S-3A), C-O-CC, C-O-CC;P-S;RA-H, C-O-CC;RA, C-O-CC;RA-H (2 variants, e.g. C-O-CC;RA-H-3.2), C-O-ROSS, C-O-ROSS;S, C-O;C-O (14 variants, e.g. C-O;C-O-1.0;R-6), C-O;C-O-CC, C-O;C-O-CC;M, C-O;C-O-CC;P-S, C-O;C-O-CC;RA, C-O;C-O-CC;RA-H (2 variants, e.g. C-O;C-O-CC;RA-H-3.2;RA4.8) and 30 more.
6,178 of those lie in TWO OR MORE districts at once. Their code below holds every district the parcel really shares area with, joined by a semicolon — C-1-O;C-2, C-1-O;C-2;C-O;RA8-18, C-1-O;C-2;R-5, C-1-O;C-O, C-1-O;C-O-1.0;R-5 and 421 more. The ordinance does not say the larger share wins, so we do not pick one: the parcel is shown as straddling and is not counted under either district.
71 of those carry a code that looks like one of the districts above and is not one. C-O-CC, C-O-ROSS — these are separate zone classifications in their own right, not the same zone with something added, and the use table has no column for them. We do not fold them in.
Owner filters. We have an owner of record for 38,486 of Arlington County’s 38,683 parcels, of which 4,303 are owned by a company, trust or other organization, including 776 owned by public bodies — governments, authorities, schools, churches. That split is Zonescore’s reading of the owner’s name, not something the county published, and we keep the two apart rather than deciding for you which counts as an investor. 2,447 have an owner whose mailing address is outside VA — the county publishes the owner’s state as its own field, so this is its answer rather than our reading of an address. It carries one for 38,165 of them; the rest are not counted either way. 7,575 are owned by somebody this county writes to at a different address — not the property itself. That is where the tax bill goes, which is not the same as where the owner sleeps — an owner can collect mail at a property they rent out, and one who is written to elsewhere may still live here. We can tell you the two addresses differ; we cannot tell you the owner does not live at the property. 5,716 of them are written to an address inside VA, so the out-of-state filter above cannot see them at all. That count is out of the 35,233 properties where we could compare the two addresses. On 3,253 more we could not — the owner is written to a post-office box, or the county’s own record of the property names a street and no building number — and those are left out rather than counted as living at home. Matching two addresses is Zonescore’s reading, not something the county published: we treat “123 Main St” and “123 Main Street” as one place, ignore an apartment number, and compare the ZIP code rather than the town name — a jurisdiction’s record of a property and its record of that property’s owner often name the same place by different towns, and treating those as two addresses would count somebody living in their own house as an absentee. 31,987 are worth more as land than as building — the county’s own land assessment is at least 50% of its total. 52 properties carry no pair of assessments and are left out of that count rather than treated as zero, which would make every one of them look like bare land.
Owner names are worked out from Arlington's published sales and transfer records, not from a County owner list — about 1 in 5 name only the first of several owners, and about 1 in 27 are flagged as possibly wrong.
Owner of record derived from Arlington County's Property Sale History dataset, which records sales and other transfers such as gifts and inheritances. Retrieved September 22, 2026. Source: Arlington County open data. Not endorsed or certified by Arlington County. Property addresses from Arlington County's Property dataset, retrieved September 22, 2026.
The parcel record we fetch carries no ZIP code for the property itself, so the district counts above carry no ZIP breakdown. It gives the street address only; the one ZIP it does carry belongs to the owner’s mailing address, which is a fact about a different place and is not used here. We do not infer a ZIP we were not given.
Overlay districts are not modeled here. An overlay can change what a property allows.
Some cells in this ordinance state two outcomes without saying what separates them; those are shown with their code and their source, and not guessed at.

Built from scripts/build_reverse_index.py, generated 2026-10-11T20:59:04+00:00.