Contractor plans to live in her development

• By C.J. FUTCH
• Advocate Ascension section writer
• Published: Nov 5, 2009

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PRAIRIEVILLE — Sometimes, Jodi Mire admits, it’s hard to be a woman.

She pauses from her conversation to answer a question about one of the hundreds of details involved in building a condominium. The countless subcontractors she works with at her first big project are mostly men.

She’s spent much of her working life — she’s an architect by training — earning their respect, first in the New Orleans area.

Post-hurricane insurance troubles that affected homeowners in New Orleans — Mire mostly did restorations — also affected Mire’s business.

“It got chaotic,” she said. “I was looking for a new start. A clean slate.”

Two longtime friends, Shannon Andre and Annette Leon, both Realtors, suggested what turned out to be a perfect match.

She moved to Ascension Parish in 2007, and eventually moved her entire business here, too.

“Here, you have to do everything. Roads, sewers, water lines, electricity,” Mire said.

So, to keep costs down, she decided to do it all herself.

“I’m architect, designer, general contractor, landscape architect,” she said. “I wear four or five different hats. But that means I’m always here, I’m always working, and I’m sweating, just like they are,” Mire said, pointing to a group outside doing dirt work in what will soon be the road to her DeGagé Condominiums.

The upside for Mire is that she’s always available to answer questions, make decisions and otherwise oversee her project.

“It’s faster. Nobody has to wait for me to drive here to answer a question. They just walk on in,” she said.

Being a single mother was probably good training for where she is now. She fields queries on everything from where to put the sewer lines to how to install insulation, to the doorknobs and drawer pulls on the kitchen cabinetry.