As the Muppet sang, it’s not easy being green. But despite the hassles and cost, challenges and pitfalls, the Octagon is about as green as it gets – at least in terms of being one of the most eco-friendly buildings in New York City. It wears the color well.

It’s been just about a year since the Octagon opened as a market-rate rental building, with 20 percent of its 501 units reserved for moderate-income renters. Its success can be judged by leases renewed, length of the waiting list, and awards on the mantle of architectural firm Becker + Becker Associates.

Those awards cut two ways: Some are for the building’s historical-preservation features, since the design recreated the landmarked rotunda using some of the original blue-gray schist, while keeping its 14-story dimensions within the footprint of the original structure designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. But most of the plaudits have been for the building’s green elements, which far surpass what the City building code requires and which seem to go off at times into sci-fi territory: complicated heating/cooling loops, furniture panels made of repurposed food byproducts, 250 solar panels that look like a herd of shiny dominoes grazing on the rooftop.

Becker + Becker’s John Renner took The WIRE on a top-to-toe tour of the Octagon’s green-ery earlier this week. Some of the features he pointed out were what you’d expect in most new construction: recycled steel, for example, or insulated windowpanes. Some of the most impressive features are simply part and parcel of Roosevelt Island itself, such as the underground pneumatic system for whisking away garbage, or the hybrid Red Bus, or the stunning views that make any apartment here seem to be in sync with the landscape.

John Renner explains a unit that pre-cools fresh air in summer and preheats it in winter.

But the Octagon really does go the extra mile in its metaphorical Birkenstocks – from the mundane (non-toxic cleaning products) to the wacky (recycled sunflower seeds pressed into composite furniture panels; if you look closely, you’ll see that the "grain" is really… er… grain).

Nearly everywhere you look, there’s a recyclable: Wheatboard kitchen cabinets made from an inedible straw product left behind after the harvest. Hardboard planks and stair treads by way of weathered old Pennsylvania barns. As much of the character-laden gneiss as could be salvaged from the original Octagon structure, the last vestige of the insane asylum that undercover reporter Nellie Bly once exposed as stinky, dangerous, and downright crazy.

"In comparison, how much easier it would be to walk to the gallows than to this tomb of living horrors!" wrote Bly in her late-19th century exposé.

The former "tomb of horrors" now boasts underground parking, a day-care center, a pool, and its own bodega, gym, and tennis courts. The rotunda’s grand spider-web of a staircase, where Bly observed inmates being choked by guards when they weren’t being frozen by forced, icy baths, features curved, airy spaces for an art gallery and the Roosevelt Island Historical Society.

Back in the day, as Bly’s rowboat approached the Island, she trembled in fear. "What is this place?" she asked of a man "who had his fingers sunk into the flesh of my arm." Blackwell’s Island, he replied, "an insane place, where you’ll never get out of."

Had she arrived today, though, Bly could have gotten out pretty easily: the Octagon has its own express Red Buses during rush hour, and as soon as the Army Corps of Engineers gets its act together, Bly’s old dock will be ready to welcome a New York Water Taxi for smartly-dressed commuters; the permits are already in place.

Once Becker+Becker got the green bug, they kept going. The list of green elements they rejected is possibly longer than what they wound up using, but that’s the way it goes when you’re charting new territory. "Building green is very fun in theory, and it’s fun when you’re finished," explained Renner, a city planner by training. "The technology is so new that there’s trial and error, and a lot of investigating of things endlessly that you may or may not implement."

Photovoltaic arrays on the roof at Octagon Park

Like the fuel cells that were rejected in favor of the rooftop photovoltaic panels. Or the pricey natural bamboo they wanted for flooring until they realized that the energy expended in importing it all the way from Asia outweighed any green benefits.

Bruce Becker, president of Becker+Becker and the chief force behind the Octagon restoration, would have been on this little Octagon tour, but he had a couple of things on his schedule that got in the way. Last Tuesday alone, he spent the morning at Development New York’s first Green Building Awards ceremony, where Gotham Construction won for its work as contractor on the Octagon and two other projects.

Then, Tuesday evening, Becker received the Lucy Moses Award for the Octagon from the New York Landmarks Conservancy. The Octagon has also won the Green Apple award from the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department of Environmental Protection. Becker outlines the awards he’s received in terms of color: there’s a silver certificate coming soon for surpassing yet another environmental standard. He barely has time to design new and greener buildings for all the colorful awards he has to pick up.

Clearly, the Octagon has emerged as a champion in the suddenly hot field of "green" – buildings whose design, systems, and upkeep are consistent with the goals of a new, Earth-friendly construction aesthetic. But the developer’s commitment to green isn’t only about being kind to the environment. Renner figures they received about $5 million in tax breaks and other construction incentives for going green, in addition to the lower cost on the back end: the gas and electric bills are about 35% less than in buildings that are energy hogs. (Renters get a break on their own electric bills estimated at $90-$270 per year, depending on the size of the apartment.)

Back to Kermit, though… it’s definitely not easy being green. Renner is candid about the brave new world of green, in which no one is quite sure these newfangled mechanical systems will work precisely as planned, because "you rely on your mechnical/electrical/plumbing engineers, you hire specialists. They do energy models where they look at how this equipment will perform. But it comes down to how well your engineer designed it, and how well it was put in."

Take the pool, for example. The elaborate system whereby the water from the pool mingles with the water from the HVAC system, sort of a literal One Hand Washes the Other, sounds great on paper. And it does work, in its way, to use cold water to cool what needs cooling and hot water to warm it elsewhere. In practice, though, the pool water only gets a few degrees warmer than otherwise, which is not the same for swimmers as stepping into a warm bath. "In ten years, they might want to install some other kind of heater," suggested Renner.

Then there are the gorgeous old floor planks in the rotunda. As you walk on them, you can imagine yourself in one of those Northeast Pennsylvania barns. Unfortunately, a few of the planks endured recent water damage from a sprinkler-system mishap, and there’s no way to match the damaged pieces of wood to the barns whence they came. Any replacement boards will look decidedly different.

There’s also a great plan to get in on the energy savings provided by that turbine experiment that’s going on in the East River. Currently, Gristedes is drawing power from the fish-friendly turbines. "We’re in the queue," said Renner wryly, meaning that the Octagon isn’t the only entity waiting its turn for those turbines.

All those tax incentives aren’t exactly free, either. On Monday, May 7, an army of inspectors will arrive with 50 sensor devices to test the air and make sure that no one mopped a floor with ammonia or mistakenly sprayed Pledge on a wooden bannister. Because the tax credits are allocated over a five-year period, the building is tested annually to make sure they’re earned. "We need to meet certain benchmarks in order to continue to receive this financing," says Renner.

He points to a reception-area photo of one of the sensor devices. "It’s pretty sophisticated equipment," he said, then corrected himself after a WIRE reporter looked dubious. "Actually, in this picture, it doesn’t look so sophisticated," he agreed. It looked like a low-tech prop from the original Star Trek TV series.

"But if you break it, that’s $100,000 right there," said Renner, cheering up considerably.

Green is good, but it comes at a price.