The long-awaited $12 million elephant enclosure at Oahu’s fourth most visited site, the Honolulu Zoo, is finally finished and open for public viewing.

Female Asian elephants Mari and Vaigai emerged from their new holding pen Monday during a dedication ceremony with colorful chalk designs drawn on their faces and their big ears flapping. They wore long metal necklaces, and a chorus of jingling could be heard with each step.

Zoo trainers led them into their habitat near the end of the ceremony while an offering and chant to the Indian elephant god were performed. The exhibit also received a traditional Hawaiian blessing a few days ago.

"I can’t think of a greater Christmas gift for our elephants than this great big new exhibit," Mayor Peter Carlisle said during the dedication. "So, Mele Kalikimaka."

The 1.5-acre space is nine times larger than the zoo’s previous elephant enclosure and includes a 7,260-square-foot holding pen and two 55,000-gallon pools.

Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo said Mari and Vaigai have been enjoying the pools by getting wet, giving each other head-to-toe dirt baths and jumping back in to clean off.

"They’ve never had a pool like this before where they could immerse themselves," he said.

The elephants’ old exhibit was about the size of a typical Oahu single-family house lot and made largely of concrete. The new space, near the zoo’s African Savannah area, is a more natural and open habitat with flat, dirt terrain and tall concrete planters designed to look like rocks housing young plants that will grow and provide shade.

The new site has many new conveniences. Mollinedo said a scale is built into the holding pen so the staff no longer has to call the city to bring in a truck scale when the elephants need to be weighed.

"You’ve got a lot more capabilities with this exhibit," Mollinedo said. "It’s a facility that’s going to serve us for many years to come."

Instead of a traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony, the zoo staff let Mari and Vaigai do the honors.

Two tall stalks of vegetation were set up with a maile strand strung between them. One of the elephants walked through the middle, breaking the strand, and they both turned around and chomped on the stalks until they were gone.

Mollinedo said the elephants have been in their new home for about 3½ weeks, but until Monday it was shielded by construction fences so visitors didn’t frighten the animals during their transition.

Mari, born in 1975, was welcomed in the early 1980s as a gift from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi through the efforts of David Watumull, the former consulate general of India in Honolulu. Watumull died in 1988, but his wife, Sheila, traveled to Madras, India, in 1992 and hand-picked Vaigai, who was born in 1985.

Construction on the new habitat began in August 2010, but planning has spanned decades.

Elephant handler Malia Davis has been working with Mari and Vaigai at the zoo for nearly 20 years. She said she remembers someone telling her when she was hired in 1992 that she was coming at a perfect time because the zoo was going to build a new elephant exhibit.

"There were some times I really didn’t think it was going to happen," Davis said. "Finally I get to see it, and I haven’t retired yet!"

There is still one element to be added to the exhibit: a viewing pavilion Shelia Watumull is having built in honor of her husband.