News & Insights
Photo courtesy of: Greg Land
Hospitality development in remote and infrastructure-light locations presents a very different set of challenges than traditional urban or resort markets. From logistics and utilities to supply chain risk and stakeholder coordination, successful delivery requires deep planning, redundancy, and experience operating where the margin for error is slim.
We sat down with Stuart Hemmes, a Senior Project Manager at PMA, to talk about his work supporting large-scale, logistics-driven hospitality developments in remote island environments, and what owners, developers, and operators should know before embarking on similar projects.
Q: Tell us about your professional background and what led you to PMA.
Stuart Hemmes: My background is in construction management—I studied at Ferris State University in Michigan—and my career path has been a bit unconventional. I started in facilities management in Southern California during a time when construction jobs were hard to come by, then moved into general contracting where I worked across multifamily and mixed-use projects.
Later, I transitioned back into facilities and project management roles, including work on large corporate accounts. That eventually led me into more technical, MEP-heavy project management work, and ultimately brought me to PMA in late 2021. Since then, I’ve worked across a range of project types, including major ground-up developments and highly complex hospitality projects in remote markets.
Q: Those remote market projects you mentioned are often described as “logistics-driven development.” What does that actually mean in practice?
SH: Logistics is the defining factor in remote development. Nearly everything, from materials to major systems, has to be imported, carefully scheduled, staged, and protected, often within narrow weather and shipping windows.
At the same time, these sites must be largely self-sustaining, requiring on-site power, water, wastewater, and infrastructure you’d normally expect a municipality to provide. When people talk about logistics, they often underestimate its impact, but in remote hospitality projects it drives schedule, cost, risk, and overall success.
Q: What’s a major lesson you’ve learned working on remote projects?
SH: The biggest lesson is the importance of redundancy. In remote environments, you can’t rely on a single logistics provider or plan, you need backup vendors, alternate shipping methods, and sometimes creative solutions like air freight. The goal is to get critical materials on site early and build flexibility into the schedule.
We’ve seen how delays in one system can quickly impact others. On one project, setbacks in power generation delayed water system startup, but temporary systems and built-in redundancies allowed us to stay on track. In remote development, everything is interconnected, and preparation is what prevents small issues from becoming major disruptions.
Q: What makes working in remote hospitality markets rewarding?
SH: It’s not that the challenges are easier (they’re not) but they do force you to be more thoughtful and more collaborative. You gain a real appreciation for planning, for stakeholder coordination, and for understanding how decisions made early affect execution months later.
I also enjoy navigating different regulatory environments and authorities having jurisdiction. While the process may be less formal than in some U.S. municipalities, it’s still relationship-driven and requires a lot of communication and trust.
Q: What advice would you give hospitality owners or developers considering a project in a remote market?
SH: Ask more questions than you think you need to, and ask them earlier. There are always more stakeholders involved than initially apparent, and each one brings requirements that can affect scope, schedule, and cost.
Cast a wide net, give yourself more time, and build contingency into your planning. It can feel uncomfortable to involve more voices early, but it’s far better than discovering downstream impacts late in the process. In remote markets especially, preparation and coordination are what drive successful outcomes.
Thank you to Stuart for his participation in Ask the Expert. If you have a topic you’d like one of our experts to cover in a future issue, submit them here.
