GRAND FORKS -- Winnipeg-based Canad Inns says it is now prepared to move forward with construction of a $40-million hotel and entertainment complex at Alerus Center in this North Dakota city. Though no date for the ground-breaking has been selected, Canad Inns' architect, Lonnie Laffen of JLG Architects, said he anticipated it would happen at the end of March. Laffen and Leo Ledohowski, Canad Inns president and chief executive officer, said the project -- called the Canad Inns Destination Center -- has been evolving since it was first announced in 2003.

The 13-story hotel will be the city's second-tallest building. Only the North Dakota State Mill and Elevator will be bigger when the Canad Inns complex is built, Laffen said.

The complex is to include a 40,000-square-foot indoor water park, three restaurants, a video arcade and a movie theatre. Some of those components had been added on or resized in recent months.

Canad Inns is still seeking a company to operate the theatre, a side of the hospitality business with which it does not have expertise.

But negotiations appear to have taken long enough that Ledohowski decided to start construction without waiting for the theatre.

"We wanted to get going. We couldn't wait anymore," he said. There has been intense speculation among some Grand Forks-area residents over the timing of construction, the underlying question being whether Canad Inns was going to build at all.

The time frame for the complex's opening is still not clear.

Ledohowski earlier had said he hoped to open the hotel in December. He said Friday that remains the goal, but it will be difficult to achieve.

The main reason the project has been delayed is that Canad Inns' business plans kept changing. Back in 2003, the company had planned to build a hotel and a movie theatre while the city was to build the water park. But voters killed those hopes, and Canad returned in early 2004 with a plan to build its own water park.