Fresh Site for Student Accommodation

Varsity Apartments

Varsity Apartments offer student accommodation. Located right next to an Australian university campus, each fully-furnished apartment has four bedrooms, with a large kitchen and living area.

Students get the bedroom to themselves, which includes an ensuite bathroom, a study desk, private phone line, and access to the in-house local network with high speed internet connection. The entire complex can house around 500 students, and also offers a volley ball court, tennis court, swimming pools, games room, laundry facilities and BBQ areas.

In short, this is ideal student accommodation. The new owners wish to streamline operations, and reduce the staff workload by making the website more functional.

The existing website can be seen here:
http://www.varsityapartments.com.au

This website will showcase the complex, encouraging students to apply for residency during semester.

We'll also provide information for parents, and useful information and tools for current residents. Our residents are primarily international students, studying at the close-by campus.

We're picturing a fixed-width (for 1024 sized screens) layout, with a header area at the top for logo, banner image, and horizontal menu. Two columns for Content + Sidebar under that, with a full-width footer at the bottom. That's just our initial idea - if you come up with something better, we're open to it.

We'll need something visually appealing, with a well-organised layout to display our information/content.

The sidebar will include our twitter feed showing the latest 2-3 tweets, and possibly a Facebook badge.

We'll include a testimonial, and a section for "Upcoming Dates". This will list the next 3-5 important dates for students/residents.
Example dates: 15 Feb - Orientation Week. 22 Feb - Classes start. 29 Mar - Mid-Sem Break. 14 Jun - Exams commence.

We may also want promotional banners/buttons to encourage "Apply Now" (people to apply to live here), or to promote an upcoming social event.

The content column should have the page heading, followed by text including bullet points, links, and floating images. You may consider including a promotional "Apply Now" banner. The footer should include some links and a copyright notice.

The menu will have a few top-level items, with dropdown options available. Your entry should show what an expanded dropdown looks like. See attachments for menu items.

Important: We'd like the design in a layered PSD format.