With a turn of the backhoe's blade, the long wait finally ended for Leo Ledohowski.

The chief executive of Canad Inns saw three years of near-unlimited patience come to fruition yesterday as construction crews broke ground on the northwest corner of the Keystone Centre, the site a 13-storey hotel Canad plans to open partially by Christmas.

Ledohowski says it was the phone calls, e-mails and letters from ordinary Brandonites that told him it was worth it to keep fighting for his hotel.

"If the public wasn't behind the project, you wouldn't want to interlope into a community. I felt very comfortable and very welcome," Ledohowski said moments after he, Mayor Dave Burgess and Keystone chairman Tim Silversides did the ceremonial dig into the ground torn up by the backhoe.

It took three years, a lot of bickering and a failed deal before the Keystone and Canad made it official last summer with an agreement to attach a hotel to the building.

For Burgess, yesterday was an exciting day after staking his political life on the hotel deal, fighting for it as the former Keystone chairman and using his image as the guy who opened Brandon for business to win the municipal election in 2002.

"To have this groundbreaking is a real signal for the public and for outsiders that Brandon is open for business, ready to roll, and a real beacon," said Burgess.

In fact, Ledohowski says he plans to have beacons shining into the sky from the top of the hotel.

He also said he wants to have as many local skilled labourers as possible working on the project. He also financed the project locally, but would not give the final figure as it has grown past the original $16-million estimate.

Paul Bergman, project manager for Bird Construction, says that subcontracts will be awarded in the next two or three weeks so he cannot say with 100 per cent certainty yet just how many of the project's 120 full-time workers will be local tradespeople.

He added that demolition of the three barns and the Manex Arena at the footprint of the hotel begins today.

That poses another challenge, as the Keystone must now build a new agricultural facility for the 2005 Royal Manitoba Winter Fair.

Silversides says the Keystone board may have to sit down later this month and form a Plan B for their new facility since they do not have funding commitments from senior governments yet.

He says, though, that he's confident new barns will be built and guests and exhibitors will have a new facility and a new hotel greeting them next year.

"We're confident we've set up a game plan that we can keep ourselves on track no matter what snares are thrown at us," Silversides said.

Burgess says the city will give no more cash after providing the Keystone with $2.5 million over 10 years as well as more than $200,000 a year in Canad's taxes.

He says the federal government needs to step up, pointing out they haven't sprang for any new construction at the Keystone since the early 1990s.