VALENCIA, Spain — For a while, this sprawling Mediterranean city embraced Santiago Calatrava’s architecture with gusto. In a dried-up riverbed, Mr. Calatrava built and built, eventually filling 86 acres with his radical, and some say awe-inspiring, designs.

But these days, even as Mr. Calatrava’s eye-catching PATH station creeps toward completion in Lower Manhattan, he is often cast as a villain here in Valencia. One local politician runs a Web site called Calatravatelaclava, which loosely translates as, “Calatrava bleeds you dry.”

Originally budgeted at 300 million euros (about $405 million), the riverbed complex, called the City of Arts and Sciences — the world’s largest collection of Mr. Calatrava’s work, which includes a performance hall, a bridge, a planetarium, an opera house, a science museum, a covered walkway and acres of reflecting pools — has cost nearly three times that much, money the region never had.

Ignacio Blanco, the member of the provincial Parliament who started the Web site, has unleashed a flood of information about the complex during the past year, concluding that Valencia still owes 700 million euros (about $944 million) on it.