SMITHFIELD - Smithfield and Selma plan to work together to entice industrial development. The two towns will split the near-$35,000 cost of a state certification that could draw investors to private properties near the towns' shared border.

"We're pooling resources and putting our heads together just to attract industrial development," said Ryan Simon, planning director for Selma.

The two towns are working with a firm that will help two private properties join the N.C. Department of Commerce's Certified Site program. The program is a marketing tool that helps prospective developers find sites for industry.

The towns plan to have Sanford Holshouser LLP prepare the properties' certification; the work will include environmental and infrastructure studies, cost analyses and aerial photography.

"It gives us the opportunity to market that property to industries and companies that might be looking to expand or to move into our jurisdictions," said Eric Williams, Smithfield's town manager.

The certification would let companies know the sites don't have serious problems with their titles, groundwater, soils, etc.

Neither town would say which properties they're considering, but they said there was one parcel in each town, both near the Smithfield/Selma border. By going in together the towns will get a reduced rate from Sanford Holshouser, and officials said development in either town would help the other.

"We want to share in all aspects of it, cost and benefits," said Richard Douglas, Selma's town manager

Douglas said the project has been three years in the making. Sanford Holshouser is doing preliminary work now; the Department of Commerce will soon tell the towns whether the properties are likely to win approval.

"We're not going to go in and pay for all the geotechinical and other environmental work ... until DOC says this is a certifiable site," Douglas said.

Selma's last big development was the Sysco plant, which is beginning to pay dividends, Simon said.

"If we can attract more of that type of development, we're going to start seeing some exponentially greater benefit," he added.

Once certified, the properties would be put in a directory that developers can peruse. The certification could also bring windfall benefits to the owners of the tracts. The surveying and certification work, which would come at no cost to the private land holders, could improve their chances of selling their lands.

Douglas said the cost is justified because it could draw major development to prime land, boosting tax bases and attracting more people and investments to both Smithfield and Selma.