Here is some additional detail on the cancelled auction and who is involved.
From the SF Business Times:
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The Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which planned to hold the live auction Wednesday morning in City Hall, called off the event late Tuesday because developers “expressed concern over entitlement risk,” said Adam Alberti, a Transbay spokesman, referring to the city's office cap and what that would mean for this site, which does not have approvals yet. The auction also required a major nonrefundable up-front payment, which could now be pared back in the new process. The recent stock market volatility may have played a role in pushing developers, some of whom were Chinese, to demand more certainty.
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To summarize, developers were worried about all the up-front cash they would have to pay before the site was even entitled. Since Prop M limits the amount of space that can be approved, that's a sizable risk. Additionally, two of the developers are Chinese companies and may have been spooked by the recent volatility in their stock market.
Other developers who are in the mix include: Crescent Heights, Urban Pacific Investors and Lincoln Property Co.