Fresh faces, thick wallets
Loudoun tops the nation in 25-to-34-year-olds with hefty incomes

By Annie Gowen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 7, 2009

Kunal Shah is just 28 and already living large. He jets monthly to such fun places as Vegas or Montreal. He owns the D.C. nightclub Eyebar, a Mercedes-Benz and a Denali SUV.

But instead of living in a hip city loft, his main crib is a staid townhouse in Ashburn.

Suburban Loudoun County might seem like an unlikely stamping ground for an affluent twentysomething such as Shah. But a recent Nielsen study showed that the county boasts the nation's highest concentration of residents 25 to 34 with salaries of $100,000 or more -- about 10 percent of the population vs. 2 percent nationally -- with Arlington County a close second.

The region as a whole is increasingly a magnet for the young and wealthy. Nielsen estimates that 15 of the top 50 counties with a high concentration of young, high-income earners are Washington area communities, up from eight in 1990.

"The wealth there is astonishing," said Eric Trump, 25, who oversees the redevelopment of a Loudoun golf course that his father, Donald Trump, purchased this year. "And you're only going to see that grow."

Like Shah, many of these affluent young people are self-made entrepreneurs, high-tech workers from the Dulles corridor or employees of federal contracting firms that have flourished even in the downturn. A significant number live outside the city's urban core, either in condominiums near Metro lines in Arlington or Bethesda or rattling around in large, single-family houses bought as investment properties before the real estate bust sent their values plummeting. Yet with their incomes little unchanged in the past year or so, these people still have disposable income to burn. That's why some call Shah's community Cashburn.

Mike Mancini, Nielsen's vice president of data product management and an Arlington resident, called the results "striking." His company parsed Census Bureau and other data from January.

"No other metro market in the country had that many of their counties in the top rankings. This was a bit surprising, even to a local like myself," said Mancini, 46. He attributes the region's emergence as a magnet for young, high-income earners to the abundance of medical, engineering, technology and information companies in the region, above and beyond the government.

"It is the employees of these private-sector companies that are likely earning the income for these young and wealthy households, rather than the federal workers themselves," Mancini said. "The competitive demand for project managers and other technical professionals has driven up salaries."

In Loudoun, the 10,494 households in this demographic, about 10 percent of the county's population, are about evenly split between married couples with kids vs. singles and married couples without kids.

The couples with kids might argue that a two-income household of $100,000 for a family of four in this market hardly makes them rich, noted John B. Wood, chief executive of the information technology firm Telos Corp. and chairman of Loudoun's Economic Development Commission.

Sex and the suburbs

But the singles and childless couples, about 53 percent of Loudoun's young, affluent population, can afford to buy luxury cars or frequent upscale shopping malls such as Dulles Town Center and Tysons Galleria. The BMW dealership in Sterling has turned to marketing through social media such as Facebook and Twitter to attract younger clientele. The same crowd has turned Saturday afternoons at the county's many wineries into " 'Sex and the City' in the vineyards," as one onlooker described it, with young wine-tasters dressed to the nines lolling on blankets on the lawn.

"We like the pace out here. We can come home and relax," said Maureen Fisher, 32, a consultant who lives with her husband, Peter, 35, in the Loudoun community Lowes Island, not far from Trump National Golf Course. After a hard day's work in the city, they climb into their tricked-out golf cart, replete with its own beer cooler and ball washer, and head to the course for nine holes or Lobster Night in the clubhouse.

By contrast, Loudoun's singles, who work at the county's largest employers, such as America Online or Verizon Business, might live in the county but end up spending much of their leisure time shopping or going out in the District.

"I go into the city to do all my fun stuff," said Maureen Colon, 34, an AOL employee and Ashburn resident. "Honestly there's not much to do out here. It's very predictable."

Kelly Muccio, owner of the Lost Boys clothing store in Georgetown, said business has been good despite the recession in part because of her affluent male clientele, many of whom live outside the District. They have the disposable income to spend $225 on a white button-down shirt and can book a consult at the "style bar" for advice on what to wear for a hot date or weekend trip.

"People spend so much money in my age group, you'd think it was flowing like water," said Sunil Chhabra, 26, of Bethesda, co-owner of remodeling company. "People in this area like working hard and partying just as hard. Has it come down a bit [in the recession]? Yes, but it's definitely steady."

During the first flush of success, Chhabra owned two BMWs and a Porsche, all black. He's since downscaled to one car but still thinks nothing of flying to Vegas for a friend's birthday party, with $1,000 in his pocket for the tables.

K Street playgrounds

In the K Street corridor, a host of upscale clubs and lounges, such as Lima and Josephine, have opened up in the past few years. They cater to this demographic, with lines spilling into the street and lending downtown Washington a spring break-like atmosphere after business hours. Shadow Room, where customers can order a drink on their iPhone from the dance floor, is a particular favorite of the young rich from the outer fringes because it sits at 21st and K streets with easy access to Interstate 66.

"The social landscape has changed dramatically in the last three years," said Eric Lund, 27, an entrepreneur from Arlington. He often hosts parties at local clubs or gathers his twentysomething clients for "field trips" to places such as the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles.

The District had been thought of as conservative and stuffy, Lund said, but a host of young entrepreneurs, Obama administration staffers and ex-Wall Street types imported to help fix the financial system have kicked the city's energy "into hyper-drive."

One recent Friday evening, Shah and one of his business partners, Rajeev Subramanian, 28, hosted a bustling party at Josephine, where one of their young Montgomery County clients spent more than $2,000 at a reserve table, quaffing Dom Perignon and Cristal champagne.

About 3 a.m., they climbed into their cars for the wearying 45-minute drive back to Ashburn, where they share a townhouse decorated in bachelor-pad style, with an L-shaped couch and big-screen TVs.

Life in the suburbs can be isolating, Shah said. They don't know their neighbors.

But Shah, who also lives and works part of the week in Richmond, said he wouldn't have it any other way.

"The only drawback is that late-night drive," he said. "I love everything else about it. It's isolated, and I can stay focused on my work. D.C. feels like a party every night, so you just want to get away."

Researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.