Weekend Interview: Michael Graves’ Sean Pichon On Taking The Office-To-Residential Leap

This series goes deep with some of the most compelling figures in commercial real estate: the dealmakers, the game-changers, the city-shapers and the larger-than-life personalities who keep CRE interesting. Over three decades, Sean Pichon has designed dozens of multifamily and mixed-use buildings across D.C. — two of those decades as founding partner of D.C.-based PGN Architects and more recently at Michael Graves. But one of his most recent projects holds a particular significance, a building that represents the city’s hopes for its postpandemic future. Pichon wielded the pencil for Elle, the District’s first major office-to-residential conversion downtown, a former Peace Corps building now transformed into 163 apartments with a...