The Boston Collegiate Charter School hopes to expand its Mayhew Street campus with a cafetorium and additional classrooms, Principal Shannah Varon told community members on Tuesday.

In a presentation to the John W. McCormack Civic Association, Varon and the Boston Collegiate team made a pitch for 13 additional classrooms to be constructed above existing parking along Boston Street.

Three floors of classroom space would rise over a floor of ground-level parking, allowing space for about 32 cars, which is eight fewer than are currently available on the lot.

The civic group earlier this year approved plans for a cafetorium – combination cafeteria and auditorium – to fit between existing Boston Collegiate buildings and provide students with a communal space to eat and assemble as a school. An interior balcony, which would add 30 to 40 more seats, is now part of the plan.

Boston Collegiate has about 500 students currently enrolled, but only 25 classrooms, many of which are small and cramped.

“One of the problems that we have now is we’re basically at 100 percent utilization of the building, sometimes crouching in small spaces,” Varon said. “What that means is our teachers may want to teach an elective course or we may want to offer a new advanced placement course offering, and we can’t. Not because we don’t have the teachers who want to teach it or the kids who want to take it, but because we don’t have the classroom in which it can be taught. So we’re not hoping to have more students, but to have more course offerings.”

Consistently the highest performing charter school in the city, Boston Collegiate should have academic facility that meets that standard, Varon said, adding that students do not currently have the option of moving into smaller rooms for testing or advanced placement classes, there are inadequate classrooms for art and science, and the robotics club does not have place to store its robots.

The roughly 11,200-foot new classroom building would also assist with the education of special needs students, many of whom require additional space.

Some at the meeting were critical of the need to add more classrooms and had concerns about parking and more students joining the campus.

Residents across Boston Street were displeased that the new building would block their views and sunlight and impact property values.

The association voted 21 to 14 in favor of the project, which has an Oct. 17 hearing with the Zoning Board of Appeal.

Jennifer Smith can be reached at jennifer.smith@dotnews.com, or follow her on Twitter at @JennDotSmith