Short answer … yes.
When you install WordPress at the root of example.com
you’ll be creating a third blog. Don’t worry too much about this, just recognize it’s there.
Create your network using subfolders for the different sites. Then create two new sites: blog
and otherblog
.
By default, any posts on these sites will use the URL structure: example.com/[sitename]/[permalink]
Then just import your old site into the new one and you’ll have the same URLs.
Unfortunately, there’s not really a way you can have the old one run simultaneously with the new one. All requests to the root (example.com
) will be eaten by WordPress and redirected to the appropriate site. So if you set up blog
first, any requests to example.com/otherblog
will result in a 404 error until you set up and import that site as well.
If your sites were running on subdomains rather than in subfolders it would be possible … it’s an unfortunate circumstance many people who have shared hosting plans run into (and a good reason to upgrade your host).