Say what you will about my looks or my personality, but my eyesight is perfect.

And even if I did need to visit an optometrist from time to time, I wouldn’t need to go far. There’s one on King Street, just across from the Metro in Westdale.

So what gives, MUSC?

After all the talk about what would replace the vacant storefront in the student centre between Union Market and the University Centre Pharmacy, the McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC) Board of Management has given the space to an optometrist.

The decision was a big missed opportunity.

Other schools are doing some really cool things with their student spaces, and, from what I’ve heard, there was no shortage of ideas on what we could do with the open space next to the pharmacy. There was talk of coffee shops, restaurants, lounge spaces, student services and, of course, a grocery store.

But instead, we’re getting an eye doctor – someone students might visit only from time to time, and that’s if they don’t continue seeing their previous optometrists during their visits home.

In other words, we’ll be left with that lonely and lacklustre stretch of hallway between La Piazza and Union Market.

I understand the financial argument; it’s true that sending an in-house service into MUSC’s potential retail space is a risk. But why sign a third-party business for the sake of bringing in revenue if we’re just going to sink that revenue into underexposed services?

The House of Games, SWHAT, SHEC, SCSN, Avtek, Maroons, Campus Events and Underground Media & Design (and, for that matter, the Silhouette) are among the MSU services pushed out of sight into the upper or lower floors of MUSC, not to mention organizations like SOCS, the Off-Campus Resource Centre and the Centre for Student Development.

Even TwelvEighty, our should-be-‘place-to-be’ student-run bar couldn’t make it into a decent location. (I never did like the idea of getting a beer just down the hall from my calculus tutorial.) It’s no wonder that it hasn’t been able to make the MSU money like the Rathskeller and the Downstairs John used to.

But if it’s going to be a third-party vendor that gets the spot, at least it should have been something of wider and more regular use. For the record, I would have loved to see a fresh produce seller like Grocery Checkout pop up.

There are student representatives on MUSC’s management board for a reason. McMaster’s full-time students, through their MSU fees, have paid a lot of money for the construction of the student centre. Whether it’s a service of the University or the MSU, or an outside vendor, decisions on who gets to set up shop in our student space should be purposeful and in our best interests.

So rather than allowing dentists and eye doctors and photo studios to populate the prime real estate, let’s make this building work for us.

The optometrist’s space, formerly held by Travel Cuts, will sit between Union Market and the pharmacy on the first floor of MUSC.

An optometrist’s office has been selected to replace Travel Cuts in the student centre, between Union Market and the pharmacy.

The decision comes after considerable effort by the McMaster Students Union over the past year to gather student input on what kind of business should get the main-floor space in MUSC. A proposal for the MSU to push for a grocery store, which was the most popular choice of a poll on the Students Union’s website, was brought to the MSU’s General Assembly in March, though there was not quorum at the Assembly at the time of the vote.

The decision was made by the student centre’s Board of Management, which includes representatives of both the MSU and the University.

The optometrist was one of four businesses that responded the call for expressions of interest by the Board of Management in December. Each of the others were expansions or relocations of services already existing on campus. Proposals were received from the McMaster Credit Union, the Athletics and Recreation department and Compass Information Centre.

The same group that owns the dentist’s office behind the Travel Cuts space will own and operate the optometrist. The two offices will likely share the storefront that faces the main seating area in the student centre.

Despite having received proposals only from McMaster and MSU organizations, MUSC director Lori Diamond said that a request for expressions of interest was sent to current vendors, vendors who have expressed interest in the past, the Westdale Business Improvement Area (BIA) office and other universities that might have interested vendors.

Although a grocery store was not among those businesses that responded to the Board of Management’s call for expressions of interests, Grocery Checkout Fresh Market was brought in informally to discuss the possibility. Grocery Checkout has locations in the student centres of both Queen’s University in Kingston and Western University in London.

Representatives explained that Grocery Checkout’s operation would require the space of both Travel Cuts and the University Centre Pharmacy next door.

At the time, the Pharmacy and MUSC were in negotiations over a lease renewal. With the Shoppers Drug Mart going in across Main Street and the Pharmacy’s place in MUSC somewhat up in the air, the possibility of using both spaces for a grocery store was open.

Last December, the Pharmacy was asked to suggest a rental price for a new deal. The Board of Management countered with a different number. The counter-offer remained on the table for the few months that followed.

At around the same time as the March 25 General Assembly, then-MSU president Matthew Dillon-Leitch talked with Diamond about the possibility of a grocery store using both the Travel Cuts and Pharmacy space. It was between that discussion and the April meeting of the MUSC Board of Management that Diamond informed the MSU that the Pharmacy planned to accept the Board’s counter-offer.

“I don’t think it’s in good faith in terms of projecting a good business environment that it really would have been all that moral or ethical to pull [the contract offer to the Pharmacy] back because we had potentially another offer for that space,” said Diamond.

There were a couple of key reasons behind the choice to go with an optometrist, said Diamond. Bringing in a third-party vendor, rather than a business or service of the MSU or University, guarantees revenue for MUSC. An optometrist also does not duplicate a product or service already offered in the building.