Laravel using wrong DB in multi-database environment

I have a Laravel project with a local and remote DB. I have these set in the .env. When trying to access the remote DB, Laravel is attempting to use the local DB and I am getting an error. The crazy thing is that if I remove the password for remote DB in my .env file, it throws an error about access denied to the remote DB.

I read that if there is an error with the secondary DB that it would revert to the default DB, which looks like what is happening. However, I am connected to the remote DB with Sequel Pro, so I know my connection is good. Here is the .env:

APP_ENV=local
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_KEY=JnsC2R88qLM6GTnivxLWPKs2ds2dfplI

SITE_URL=http://health.dev

DB_REMOTE_HOST=myhost.cc
DB_REMOTE_DATABASE=databasename
DB_REMOTE_USERNAME=username 
DB_REMOTE_PASSWORD=password

DB_LOCAL_HOST=localhost
DB_LOCAL_DATABASE=health
DB_LOCAL_USERNAME=homestead
DB_LOCAL_PASSWORD=secret

And my database.php:

 'mysql' => [
        'driver'    => 'mysql',
        'host'      => env('DB_LOCAL_HOST', 'localhost'),
        'database'  => env('DB_LOCAL_DATABASE', 'forge'),
        'username'  => env('DB_LOCAL_USERNAME', 'forge'),
        'password'  => env('DB_LOCAL_PASSWORD', ''),
        'charset'   => 'utf8',
        'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
        'prefix'    => '',
        'strict'    => false,
    ],
    'mysql_remote' => [
        'driver'    => 'mysql',
        'host'      => env('DB_REMOTE_HOST', ''),
        'database'  => env('DB_REMOTE_DATABASE', ''),
        'username'  => env('DB_REMOTE_USERNAME', ''),
        'password'  => env('DB_REMOTE_PASSWORD', ''),
        'charset'   => 'utf8',
        'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
        'prefix'    => '',
        'strict'    => false,
    ],

And my Center model:

<?php

namespace App;

use DB;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Center extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'Center';
    private $center;

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->center = DB::connection('mysql_remote')->table($this->table);
    }

}

no need to pass in the constructor. You can set the connection via protected property in the model:

class Center extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'Center';

    protected $connection = 'mysql_remote';

}