According to Joe Queenen at the WSJ, where I am pretty sure nobody vets stories anymore, there is an Iowan philanthropist willing to give $300 million to a city to build something, so long as they use an architect other than Frank Gehry:

A city planner who wishes to remain nameless for fear that he will be branded an enemy of iconoclastic swoopiness says that municipalities dread not having a Frank Gehry building somewhere within the city limits, even if it’s only a postmodern nursing home or a puckish, irreverent library.

Way too many unnamed sources for me to love this story, and yet I do love this story. As for people afraid to criticize Frank Gehry, there have been a lot of critiques of starchitecture and of Gehry before.