This empty space at 411 New York Avenue NE in Ward 5 could house up to five marijuana cultivation centers.

Local politicians and activists have long complained that Ward 5 had become a dumping ground for the District’s strip clubs. It now seems that a small segment of the Northeastern ward could also house a majority of the 10 cultivation centers that will serve as an integral part of the city’s nascent medical marijuana program.

Of the 28 applications submitted for licenses to run marijuana cultivation centers — 16 applicants applied for single licenses, while six applicants applied for two — all but two of them would be located in Ward 5. (The lone outliers are in Anacostia and on Benning Road in Ward 7.) Of those 26, all but one are clustered in a small area bounded to the east by North Capitol Street, to the west by South Dakota Avenue, to the south by West Virginia Avenue and Bladensburg Road and to the north by Rhode Island Avenue. The applications were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the D.C. Department of Health.

The clustering is such that five potential cultivation centers could operate out of 411 New York Avenue NE — a location which we profiled last year — and six at 1840 Fenwick Street NE.

The reasons behind the emerging Ward 5 Cultivation Center District are simple enough — due to city regulations, cultivation centers have to be 300 feet away from schools, playgrounds and recreation centers, severely limiting the amount of usable real estate in the city. (Potential gun stores have to abide by the same buffer, though Councilmember Phil Mendelson wants that to change.)

Additionally, cultivation centers, which will be able to grow up to 95 plants at once, require a good amount of space. The Abatin Wellness Center, which would be run by former talk show host Montel Williams, has scoped out 15,000 square feet on Queens Chapel Road NE, while the Kahentakon group has laid claim to 4,200 square feet at 2002 Fenwick Street NE.

Finally, given the upfront costs and estimated expenses of running a cultivation center, affordability was likely high on applicants’ list of priorities.

A five-person committee has until November 28 to undertake an initial review of the applications, after which ANCs in the areas where the cultivation centers could be located will be contacted and asked to weigh in. From the current clustering, ANC 5B will certainly have its hands full. After the ANCs have submitted formal comments, the director of the Department of Health will pick the 10 lucky applicants that will be granted licenses. By DOH’s timeline, that should happen by late January 2012.

Of course, the cultivation centers are but one part of the equation. Applications for licenses to run the five dispensaries that will actually get the medical marijuana to qualifying patients are being accepted through October 31, after which the applications will be subjected to similar scrutiny before winners are selected. What remains to be seen is whether the dispensaries — which will also have to deal with the 300-foot buffer zone — will spread out across the city more than the cultivation centers.

View Medical Marijuana Cultivation Centers in a larger map