Explore Park's governing board made it official Tuesday: When the regular season ends Nov. 18, the park's historic buildings will be boarded up and won't reopen next spring.

After the unanimous voice vote, Bootie Chewning, a member of the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority board, said, "Now we all cry."

"No, we have more business to conduct before we cry," said Chairman Fred Anderson.

The board spent an hour and a half Tuesday morning in the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center discussing options for the future, a subject members had already explored in depth at a retreat last month.

The question was whether to stay open through the winter, reopen next spring for a shortened season, or to plan to keep the park shuttered after November.

Florida-based entrepreneur Larry Vander Maten has until June 30 to announce whether or not he will exercise an option for a 50-year lease of the 1,100-acre park that straddles the Roanoke County/Bedford County line.

That will mark the end of a three-year study period to determine the economic feasibility of building an "overnight family vacation destination" that Vander Maten hopes will draw visitors from hundreds of miles away.

It also marks the end of the financial support from state and local governments that has kept the facility afloat for years. The park, conceived in 1987, didn't open to the general public until 1994 and has never been financially independent.

The parkway visitor center, opened in 2001, is independent of the park and will reopen in the spring. Its $60,000 annual operating budget is funded by Roanoke County.

Although there has been some speculation that Vander Maten may seek an extension for making a final decision, Explore board member Tom Brock said the developer "has every incentive not to ask for an extension, but to go ahead as quickly as possible."

Brock, who is also a member of Explore Park's fundraising arm, the River Foundation, has worked closely with Vander Maten as he has developed his plans, the specifics of which have not yet been announced.

That lack of information was a source of frustration for some board members, but Brock defended Vander Maten and his company, Virginia Living Histories.

"It's not that they are trying to hedge their bets for things they're doing. They basically are saying it takes a long time to get through some processes," such as government approval for water and sewer connections.

Brock insisted that, "from everything we see, they have every intention of going ahead with this thing. It is in line with what he said it would be, a tremendous economic boon for the Roanoke Valley.

"We should focus our attention on how to make sure roadblocks do not get in the way."

Explore Park Executive Director Debbie Pitts told the board her staff will concentrate on getting the park shuttered by the end of November. In the meantime, Roanoke County will be finding jobs for the 12 full-time employees and one part-timer on the Explore payroll.

Brock noted that Vander Maten has expressed his desire to hire those people once his facility begins operations, but that is expected to take at least two years after his lease begins.

By closing all operations at the end of November, the park will lose about $4,000 from canceled rental contracts, and some money from Roanoke and Roanoke County schools, which pay for presentations to their students.

That scenario, however, left the park with the most cash -- $92,000 -- to help fund the scaled-back clerical operations that will be necessary to keep the recreational facilities authority going in 2008-09.

"If the lease is activated, you're going to be a landlord for the next 50 years," Pitts said.

The authority temporarily will continue to oversee the storage of the historic buildings and some 1,700 artifacts in its care. Some that are on loan to the park may have to be returned to their owners, but Vander Maten will have an option to lease most of them.

His contract requires that whatever shape his development takes, it must fulfill the mandates of the authority's enabling legislation to provide education, recreation, preservation and conservation.

"The place is not going out of business," Brock insisted. "We're going into reconstruction mode to turn it into something that will be a major economic driver for the Roanoke Valley."

"We're literally taking a hiatus between the time we are no longer Explore and it begins to operate as a new name."