As early as next month, Tribeca will face years of street work, with all the noise, traffic tangles and burdens to businesses that typically go with it.

Shane Ojar, a deputy director of the city’s Department of Design and Construction, told Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee last month that a five-and-a-half-year replacement of water mains in northern Tribeca could start by the end of the summer. Crews will also begin a three-year overhaul of a five-block-long stretch of Chambers Street in early April that will narrow the street to one lane for the duration of the project.

“People living in the area will be able to maintain their day-to-day routine, that’s what we’re trying to do,” Ojar said.  “Obviously, that’s not going to happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Water mains beneath Hudson, as well as several of the side streets that intersect it, need to be replaced as the city prepares to begin bringing its Third Water Tunnel online in 2012. The $26 million project will occur in three phases, and at the soonest would wrap up in early 2016. Ojar said one lane of a one-block stretch of West Street—between Laight and Hubert—would be lost during the first and shortest phase of work, to last six months. A second phase, also beginning as early as this summer, will close two of four lanes on Hudson, between Laight and Hubert. Street parking will be very limited to none in affected areas for the three-year duration of that phase. Work will take place from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays and periodically on weekends, Ojar said.

Once that part of the project is completed, expected to be in 2013, the five blocks between Hubert and Worth streets will be narrowed to two lanes. Beach, North Moore and Franklin Streets, west of Hudson, will be reduced to one lane. All lanes on Hudson Street will be open during rush hour, Ojar said.

In the meantime, the Chambers Street work is just weeks away. The three-year project to replace 112-year-old water pipes will close all but one westbound lane of traffic between Broadway and West. A Department of Transportation said eastbound traffic will be diverted to Canal and Murray streets.

Ojar compared the Chambers Street project to the Fulton Street reconstruction, now underway for more than three years and the source of grief to motorists, pedestrians and businesses alike.

“That’s the worst possible example you could have given,” committee member Liat Silberman said.