By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — A bloodline of the city’s commercial base goes under the knife this year, and some mom-and-pop retailers are hoping they can stand the pain.

The artery in question, Diamond Hill Road, is on the state Department of Transportation’s list of road reconstruction projects slated to go out to bid in the first quarter of the year.
Transportation spokeswoman Dana Alexander Nolfe said work on the $4.1 million project is expected to get under way in earnest by this spring or summer.
The project calls for the resurfacing of Diamond Hill Road from Social Street to Bound Road — a 2.19 mile stretch that includes some of the most heavily frequented commercial property in the city.
The strip features two major shopping centers, a Wal-Mart, dozens of smaller retail stores and a heavy concentration of high-density apartment complexes.
In addition to resurfacing, the project calls for new sidewalks, curbs and traffic signs, according to Nolfe.
Although a host of road improvement projects are expected to land on a fast track established by the $787 billion economic stimulus package, Nolfe said the reconstruction of Diamond Hill Road was on DOT’s normal construction schedule. Business owners in the area say there have been no major improvements to the road in about two decades.
Nolfe said it was impossible to speculate as to how disruptive the work might be to the business community, but road resurfacing projects sometimes require the closure of travel lanes.
“It’ll probably going to hit us right around Mother’s Day,” worries Ernest Picard, the proprietor of Nys Flowers, 508 Diamond Hill Road.
In business at the same location since 1947, Nys is struggling through the laggard economy along with many other retail establishments. “It’s slow,” Picard says, wondering just how much worse it will be if the area becomes a construction zone that motorists avoid.
Still, Picard says he welcomes improvements to the main drag — it’s just that he hopes the project doesn’t take too long or cost Nys any more trade than the recession has already claimed.
“I’m not opposed to it,” he says. “I’m just afraid it’s going to affect business.”
DOT’s calendar of projects that will soon go out to bid also includes a number of other projects in Woonsocket and surrounding communities, including:
n $1.7 million for resurfacing and other improvements to Route 44 in Glocester, from Tourtellot Hill Road to the highway maintenance facility.
n $3.3 million for resurfacing and other improvements to Nate Whipple Highway in Cumberland, from Mendon Road to Diamond Hill Road.
n $1.3 million for another segment of the Blackstone River Bicycle Facility, the still-growing bike path that now runs from Riverside Recreation Complex in Woonsocket  to John Street in Cumberland. The prospective work calls for construction of another short segment north of the recreational complex to Davison Street.
Though the projects are not associated with the economic stimulus package, the coming infusion of capital has prompted DOT to launch a new Web site designed to make it easier to keep track of the agency’s work schedule and bidding opportunities. DOT calls the new initiative the “contract opportunities calendar.”
“We’re going to have so many projects coming through the pipeline,” said Nolfe. “This puts it into a format that’s much more user-friendly.”
The state is expected to receive about $1.1 billion from the stimulus package — roughly $137 million of which is targeted for so-called shovel-ready projects at DOT,  according to the transportation agency.
To help oversee distribution of the funds, Gov. Donald Carcieri created the Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment, which crafted the new Web site in partnership with DOT. The contract opportunities calendar is accessible at www.dot.ri.gov.
The calendar, which will be updated regularly,  includes details of all bidding opportunities, pre-bid conferences and bid openings for DOT projects.  There are dozens of projects on the list that are either currently out to bid, or soon will be — about 50 of which are associated with the stimulus package.
Half the DOT dollars for shovel-ready projects must be obligated within 141 days of the signing of the bill, which means they must start no later than July, according to DOT Director Michael Lewis.
“RIDOT expects to have every dollar spent by the deadline and may even be entitled to more,” Lewis said in a statement. “This could happen if other states can’t allocate all of their funds. Those unspent dollars will be redistributed to states ready to spend them and we will be in a position to spend more if we get more.”