Well the timing is unlucky, but projects like this take some time to complete. L3 also now has an impressive sim and groundschool building now at Gatwick but I recall seeing an artists impression of that about three plus years ago. And it did replace their facility in Southampton which had been previously used as a logistics depot and was on an industrial estate ( a sensible, low cost location, I thought ! ). It had high ceilings so could fit in sims, but classrooms were in haphazard locations round the periphery.
The logic with CAE seems to be to have the ground school in large training centres. These are situated near major airports so crew can fly in, do a few days sim, then be off again with easy flight connections. Not an issue with groundschool since they have to endure for many months! But it does also mean the bean counters of the mega corps can whizz in, cause the usual chaos, then be on their way out with minimal delay. It’s just a downside of being owned by mega corps based in North America. Their knowledge of the UK is very sketchy: the one place they will of heard of is London so it keeps it very simple for them. Same is probably true of any overseas students, given the abysmal geographic knowledge of most of the younger generation (trainee pilots in particular!).
This does not apply to the indigenous ATOs like yourself and what you say about expertise is of course correct. But for those from across the pond the bottom line is everything: their philosophy is people have to uproot their jobs and lives to follow the location logic of Corporate North America, and they just don’t get this Neolithic logic in Europe of preferring to stay in a place you know and are settled in.