COEUR d’ALENE — There was a little added oomph behind those shovels.

After years of planning — decades really — Coeur d’Alene officials broke ground on the McEuen Field redevelopment project in ceremonial fashion Monday, which is to say, there was a little extra something behind each of those dirt-moving tools.

“I say, let’s get the shovels and get started,” Mayor Sandi Bloem told the crowd of around 100 people attending the event outside of City Hall. She then counted to three and officials drove their shovels into the ground on the east side of the park.

“Keep digging,” someone from the crowd yelled.

If Monday’s groundbreaking ceremony seemed different than others, it’s because most everything about the highly publicized project hasn’t been exactly routine. But, after two years of public scrutiny and polarizing debate, dirt is beginning to move on the $14 million makeover.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Denny Davis, chairman of the Lake City Development Corp., the city’s urban renewal agency paying for $11.5 million of the upgrades. The agency formed in 1997 primarily as a way to sock away property taxes to one day pay for the project.

One day, it turned out, was Monday.

“It will be a fantastic park,” Davis said, describing the redevelopment as changing a “sea of asphalt.” “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

The project the ceremony marked is just the first step of the park’s overall redesign. It involves putting in the parking lot on the south side of City Hall, a connector trail from east to west across the park, removal of part of the larger Fourth Street parking lot, mass grading, and utility installation. It should be done in November.

The rest of the large scale project will go out to bid late this year or early next year and wrap up in November 2013, according to the city.

City Council members and project supporters Mike Kennedy and Woody McEvers, along with former council members Al Hassell and John Bruning, were among those who attended. The City Council, like the community itself, has been divided on the project. Nearly every vote tied to it ends four to three, with Bloem breaking the tie in favor of the project. Council members Ron Edinger, Steve Adams and Dan Gookin, who oppose the park plan, didn’t attend Monday’s ceremony.

The project even spurred an unsuccessful attempt by park opponents to recall the incumbents who supported the plan. When Bloem was called upon to speak Monday, the crowd cheered and applauded.

“Projects like this just don’t happen,” Bloem said, thanking the supporters who helped get the project to a point where shovels could tear dirt. “This took courage, it took support, and it took endurance.”

Then officials stomped the tools into the park’s ground as large-scale construction rigs parked on the grass served as a backdrop.

“I wanted to be here,” said Coeur d’Alene resident Lynda Wood, who attended the ceremony and thanked city officials afterward. “This is a wonderful, great day for the city.”