Brooklyn's Navy Yard wants your tenants.

"Why don't you move your paper out here?" offers Thomas Maiorano, director of leasing for the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, as we take a tour of his domains -- 60,000 SF of newly renovated commercial space right across the river form Manhattan. "We'll arrange a discount."

The irony, of course, is that at the maximum of $22 per SF the space Maiorano is marketing hardly needs a discount to sweeten the deal. In an effort to bring the Navy Yard back to its former glory, the Navy Yard Development Corporation put in a lot of effort to make its office space attractive. The former Navy dormitories now offer 24 hour security, tenant-controlled HVAC'S high-speed Internet access, high floor load capacity, and views that include all three bridges, the Twin Towers, and the Empire State Building. That's in addition to the picturesque waterfront scenery.

Anywhere in Manhattan, this kind of space would be bringing in rents up wards of $40 per SF, but what the Navy Yard is charging would make most Midtown tenants weep. The offices are priced from $16 to $20 per SF, and because the Navy Yard is marked as the state's Empire Development Zone, there are virtually no taxes involved.

"There are plenty of carrots on a stick to come here," assures Richard H. Drucker, vice president of planning and development with the Brooklyn Navy Yard. "For capital investment in machinery equipment you can get a 90% tax credit. And the city will pay $3,000 a person for each new employee hired. For companies that are growing it virtually eliminates all corporate taxes."

So why isn't everyone you know moving out to Brooklyn? A misperception of the neighborhood might be the answer.

"It's funny, when you talk about Brooklyn and the Navy Yard, people say that there's no way to get here. It's like the jungle," says Marc H. Rosenbaum, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. "But when I was working in Manhattan, I would get off the train at Grand Central Station and walk fifteen blocks to my office on Madison Ave. Here, we have subway lines which are a 10-minute walk away, we have bus routes along Flushing Ave., and we instituted a free shuttle service that goes along downtown Brooklyn."

Next week, however, the Navy Yard is going to start work on a project that might change the public perception of the neighborhood forever: the Steiner Equities movie studio. The executives at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce hope that the studio, which is scheduled to be completed by June of next year, will equip the Navy Yard with all the components it needs to become a brand-name location: an influx of new job, restaurants, and a ferry service to improve transportation.

"With that development, there will be a lot more people here," Rosenbaum explains. "It will mean an additional 2,000 to 2,500 jobs. And a 2,000 SF manufacturing building is coming next year. We see that by the end of the decade the Navy Yard will be back to the 9,000 jobs that existed here when it closed in the 1960's."

Joe Chan, director of real estate and business cervices for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, has high hopes for the development as well.

"The movie studio project is going to bring in a very significant entertainment component to the Navy Yard," he explains. "In addition to the sound stage, they plan to bring a number of support services -- design firms, animation firms, firms that do everything from sound to catering to movie-related equipment. And that again is going to create a demand for office space."

Chan admits that transportation could be a pain as far as marketing concerned, but he points out that the Development Corporation has started running a shuttle service from the Navy Yard to the closes train stops and a ferry stop has been discusses. What's more important, however, is that "Right now, the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of Brooklyn's most active business centers. For many years, it has been an industrial center and it still maintains this status, but it has taken up a new, commercial base. Over the past years, there has been an addition of pre-built, pre-wired space. And this is very advantageous for the designers, architects, and planners who are now considering moving here."

In preparation for more tenants, (the Navy Yard is currently 93% leased), the Development Corporation plans to create more land by taking the dredge materials from the docks and putting them into the channels. According to Rosenbaum and Drucker, the operation should create an additional 4 acres.

"Right now, we have about 3,500 jobs, so we hope to double that," Rosenbaum explains. "Plus, depending on how the high-tech industry goes, we have approximately 40,000 SF for that use. And we are also renovating the building to create a day care center for the workers here."

At the same time, Rosenbaum is wary about converting too much of Navy Yard's traditionally industrial space into commercial use. "We would certainly consider going more commercial," he says. "But we want to see how things develop in the next few years."

In general, however, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Corporation is pretty optimistic about the neighborhood's chances for success.

"Over the past six years, we've had a lot of capital come in from the City, from the Giuliani administration, and Ken Fisher, of the Brooklyn Council," Rosenbaum says. "Within the next two years, we should be pretty much done."

As to the tenants, they seem to be pretty happy already.

"It's a gated area and you are very close to the City -- the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge are nearby," says Sal Isola, general manager for N.Y. Crane & Equipment Corp. "It's got heavy security. It's very advantageous for a business to be here."