Mayor Levar M. Stoney is moving to hire an architectural firm to design the new George Wythe High School whether the Richmond School Board likes it or not – even as he acknowledged that City Hall would need the board’s consent to actually build the school.

With 5th District Councilwoman Stephanie A. Lynch and supporters of a new George Wythe cheering him on, the mayor announced Wednesday that he has directed Procurement Director Betty J. Burrell to issue a previously prepared request for design services, or RFP, effective Thursday, June 17. Responses would be due within 45 days.

The move is the latest twist in an ongoing battle for control of school construction. Since mid-April, five of the nine members of the School Board have insisted that Richmond Public Schools would resume control of school construction that had been ceded to City Hall more than a decade ago.

For the mayor, the final straw was a timeline that Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras issued last week showing that the school system would take six years to open a replacement for George Wythe, instead of the three years the city has indicated it would take.

“This timeline is not acceptable — not to me and especially not to the families and children of the Wythe community,” Mayor Stoney said.

However, he acknowledged that his directive is actually more for show and is aimed at bringing the School Board back to the table to set up a collaborative process.

The city “can’t legally build a new George Wythe alone,” Mayor Stoney noted in his statement, “but I can get the process started, and that’s what we’re doing. Richmond needs the School Board to do the right thing and participate in the evaluation of proposals for design services by joining us” before the RFP closes at the end of July.

School Board Vice Chair Jonathan Young, a leader of the board’s majority, said he would not support a challenge to the mayor’s action and noted he has already offered at least 10 ideas for a collaborative process, none of which have been embraced by the School Board or the city.

Mr. Young has said that the timeline issued by Mr. Kamras “does not deserve a passing grade” because it flies in the face of the construction reality in Henrico and Chesterfield counties and in other communities.

He also has insisted that George Wythe can be built within three years with the School Board in charge, as was the case with new Henrico high schools.

However, Mr. Young also acknowledges that the School Board has “been remiss in failing to address the real meat-and-potato issues.”

That includes deciding whether George Wythe needs to be a 2,000-student school, given that Richmond has several thousand empty high school seats and also is planning to build a career and technical education high school in South Side that will add even more capacity.

He said it is time for the board to engage the public and make crucial decisions about the size of the building, the programming that should be incorporated, the inclusion or not of a public library and public health clinic and the cost.

The city claims a new building would cost $140 million, or $40 million more than Henrico County spent for its two new high schools.

“Maybe, we will only need a school with a capacity for 1,500-students if the board is not willing to close any of the high schools in North Side,” Mr. Young said. “That could save tens of millions of dollars that could help us afford to build the new technical high school or build or renovate other schools. Every extra dollar we spend on building the new George Wythe is a dollar that will not go to provide new schools for other students who also need them.”