Building new site

[unfaithfulsfan]

Technically, I giving the original site a complete and major face lift using Designer Pro X. But I really want to make the site shine and stand out compared to other municipality sites in this region of Western New York state. I've been working on this off and on for the last 6 months. I think I've gotten through all the planning and am now about ready to start building the site. I've been reading through the print manual for DPX (I'm showing my age but I do so much better with the book in my hand) and have learned quite a bit but I'm still a little shaky on one major point, hence this post.

I really want to do this the "right" way, meaning to take full advantage of the software's capabilities. While this might sound like a totally "newbie" type question, but: Should I start out focusing fully on the index page and just add the "shells" of the remaining pages for navigation purposes then develop them later on? I'm sorry, but that has always kinda stumped me about this app. All the software I have used in the past has not encouraged, for want of a better term, that path. Rather, it has always been along the vein of doing each page, separately, at a time and linking them all together as you go along.

I know the longest journey still starts with the first step and I'm just looking for some advice about that particular step of this journey. How would some of you attack a redesign project which will include more than 50 pages? I've attached a rough draft of my site map in pdf format so you can see how the site will be organized.

Thanks so much for any and all assistance!
Jack