Welcome back to our 3-part article series about how Legacy develops our hotels. Here, in Part 2, we share the steps involved in executing each hotel development project. While each is unique, having a strong road map with timelines and a vision for the leadership team, is critical to keeping everything organized and on schedule.
Execution Excellence
Milestone Tracking
More than ever, successful hotel development requires rigorous milestone tracking to ensure timelines, budgets, and stakeholder expectations remain aligned. As fiduciaries of the project’s shareholder capital, the HDG Legacy development team must stay on track and on time. The high cost of construction and debt capital mean that anything less is unacceptable.
So how do we track?
At HDG Legacy, we build a detailed critical path from groundbreaking to grand opening. Each phase of the project is mapped with specific tasks and deadlines to manage sequencing and resource allocation effectively. Business, weather and seasonality are considered in formulating this critical construction path.
Key project milestones we always include are:
- Groundbreaking
- Structural completion
- Building dry in
- Interior finishing
- Final inspections and opening readiness
- Successful completion of brand milestone dates dealing with both construction, life safety, hotel content and rates.
- Agreeing to a brand presell date
- Complete post certificate of occupancy punch is completed
It is also a priority for us to ensure regular communications are distributed to partners. On a quarterly basis partners receive updates with:
- Project status summary with insights
- Key milestone dates
- Project pictures
These report outs help us maintain accountability and give partners confidence in the project’s trajectory. Additionally, each equity partner receives a direct, real-time video feed of the construction site with the contact information of the project manager.
During this phase, one of the other critical elements is creating a timeline for the key hires of the hotel. The list pf roles includes:
- General Manager
- Assistant General Manager
- Hotel Engineer
- Executive Housekeeper
- Food and Beverage Director
- Front line team members
Determining personnel comes with a number considerations. The size of the hotel, F&B offerings, meeting space, and public area amenities will affect the onboarding dates of personnel.
Milestone tracking isn’t just about staying on schedule, it’s about creating transparency, building trust, and celebrating progress along the way. On this point, creating a paper trail when milestones are not achieved is foundational to ensuring a plan for accountability with the appropriate follow up is planned.
Action Step for You: Implement a clear timeline with measurable checkpoints to ensure accountability, communicate progress transparently, and maintain control over development outcomes.
Leadership Onboarding
The list of key hires and timelines for start dates are important at this stage of development. Hiring and onboarding the right leadership team is one of the most crucial steps in setting a hotel up for long-term success.
At HDG Legacy, we focus on recruiting experienced, visionary leaders who align with our people-centric philosophy. We provide comprehensive onboarding that integrates them into operations well before the opening day, ensuring they’re equipped to lead effectively from the start.
When possible, we offer internal mobility opportunities, aiming to fill at least 35% of new hotel positions from within our existing workforce. This fosters loyalty, deepens institutional knowledge, and helps maintain our organizational culture across properties.
Strong leadership is the bridge between development and operations, and our approach ensures the hotel starts strong from day one.
Action Step for You: Invest in early recruitment and onboarding of leadership to establish culture, consistency, and operational momentum well before opening day.
Read the entire guide! Find part 1 by clicking here and part 3 by clicking here.