Representatives of the general contractor overseeing the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building are defending the firm’s safety record.

In the first public comments following a seven-alarm fire there that killed two firefighters, an executive vice president of Bovis Lend Lease, Mark Melson, said yesterday: “We deeply, deeply regret the loss of life and subsequent injuries which occurred at 130 Liberty St. I have to say though, the demolition of 130 Liberty St. is one of the most complicated and highly regulated abatement and demolition projects ever in the history of this city.” He made the statement during a heated two-hour community meeting called by local and state elected officials.

Mr. Melson and the principal of Bovis’s New York office, James Abadie, said a new safety plan would likely go into effect once deconstruction starts up again. Mr. Melson said the plan could include a new code for monitoring the building’s standpipe, a development he said could shake up how monitoring is done at demolition and construction projects across the city. Messrs. Melson and Abadie also said the team of Bovis managers that had been overseeing safety at the site would be replaced.

The Bovis officials said the firm is currently in the process of vetting new subcontractors to take down the building, which was contaminated with asbestos when the World Trade Center towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. Bovis may regain control of the site from fire investigators as soon as Friday, but the officials said they didn’t have a timeline for when demolition work would resume.

The previous subcontractor, John Galt Corp., was fired for breach of contract after fire investigators determined that a worker smoking a cigarette probably caused the fire and found other safety violations including a broken standpipe — the device that carries water for fighting fires to the top floors.

Bovis hired John Galt Corp. to deconstruct the building despite a complete lack of demolition experience and alleged mob ties.

The two officials batted away questions about the events leading up to the fire from community residents, local elected officials, and the families of firefighters killed on September 11 who attended the meeting, citing an ongoing criminal investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

“I’m not satisfied, because they did not provide us with any answers,” the father of one of the firefighters who died during the fire on August 18, Joseph Graffagnino, said after the meeting. “There are a lot of things that went wrong.” He shares his son’s name.

Earlier in the day, the president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, John McDonnell, sent a letter to the fire commissioner, Nicholas Scoppetta, demanding reports filed following a visit by fire officials to the condemned building in April 2005.

At the meeting, at least one representative from the Manhattan borough command — which reports to the commissioner — joined a group of chiefs for a familiarization visit, according to records publicized by the fire department last week. The meeting was organized by the FDNY Operations Planning and Strategy Unit, which at the time was run by the current chief of department, Salvatore Cassano.

Three officers have been removed from their commands for their alleged roles in the security and safety lapses leading up the fire, which included ending regular fire department inspections of the site in March 2006.

One of the officers removed from his post, Captain Peter Bosco, did not begin working at the company assigned to do the inspections until December 2006, a fire department spokesman said yesterday.