Sql-server – Creation of spatial index locks the table for hours

I used this code to create a spatial index in SQL Server 2008 R2:

BEGIN TRANSACTION
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
SET ARITHABORT ON
SET NUMERIC_ROUNDABORT OFF
SET CONCAT_NULL_YIELDS_NULL ON
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
SET ANSI_PADDING ON
SET ANSI_WARNINGS ON
COMMIT
BEGIN TRANSACTION
GO
CREATE SPATIAL INDEX SPATIAL_COMPANIES_GEO ON dbo.ITEMS(GEO) USING GEOGRAPHY_GRID
 WITH( 
          GRIDS  = ( LEVEL_1  = HIGH, LEVEL_2  = HIGH, LEVEL_3  = HIGH, LEVEL_4  = HIGH)
        , CELLS_PER_OBJECT  = 100
        , STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF
        , ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON
        , ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON
     )
GO
ALTER TABLE dbo.COMPANIES SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = TABLE)
GO

This query executes in 5 seconds, but then the table ITEMS seems to be locked for hours. In Management Studio I cannot expand the Indexes folder for ITEMS and any query to that table times out. Furthermore, if I restart the SQL Server service the spatial index I just created disappears.

I've tried this on my production database with 3.000.000 records and also on my test database with 300.000 records with the same result.

Is this normal? What I should do to create the index without locking the database?