LAS VEGAS — Not far from The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas hotel where the MLB general manager meetings are being held this week, the track and grandstands for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix are being built.

It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s causing traffic nightmares in a city where the famed Strip already crawls with traffic at all hours, day or night.

However, when the Formula One track is finally complete and the race begins, the event will make all the construction pains worth it.

Inside The Cosmopolitan, new Colorado Rockies president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta saw the similarities of his new franchise with the track being built nearby. There is plenty of work to be done, but the 52-year-old DePodesta believes the end result will be well worth the dust, noise and patience required with rebuilding a franchise.

“I don’t have a time frame in mind to say, ‘Hey, this is a three-year job’ or ‘this is a four-year job.’ The one thing I learned about baseball a long time ago was that these turnarounds that I have had a chance to be a part of, they’re rarely linear,” DePodesta said Monday in his first media session with Rockies beat writers since being officially named to his position on Friday.

“There’s a fundamental change of state that happens at some point among your talent and among your culture and that’s what you’re building toward.”

It was clear from the conversation Monday that DePodesta understands bringing the Rockies up from the cellar of the National League West will take time. However, it’s also clear DePodesta was brought in to give the Rockies the outside view that the organization promised it would deliver when the search for a new front office leader was announced in October after Bill Schmidt’s departure.

That same outside approach will be given room to grow by ownership, DePodesta said.

“I think we’re going to have quite a bit of autonomy to do what we feel is right,” DePodesta said. “They (Colorado’s ownership group) have been very open to suggestions and a lot of ideas. They’re not only open, but I think they’re excited about doing some things differently and having some outside perspective to bring to the organization to try some different things.”

There is a long list of items on DePodesta’s to-do list, including hiring a general manager and manager for the team. DePodesta did say 2025 interim manager Warren Schaeffer will be “part of the process” when selecting the Rockies’ manager for next season.

“The reviews I’ve gotten from people have been really, really strong about him as a person and about him as a leader,” DePodesta said, adding that he and Schaeffer had their first in-depth conversation Monday. “You know his passion. I’m excited to get to know him better, but he will absolutely be a part of the process.”

That one task is only a piece of what DePodesta is tasked to do in Denver, and he smiled when he was asked about the challenge ahead of him.

“I’m a bit of a sucker for a challenge,” said DePodesta, who spent nine-plus years as the chief strategy officer for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns before being hired by the Rockies. “The reality is that’s why these jobs come available, right? They’re rarely rolling (with wins) and then looking for someone new to take over. I’ve lived through this a number of times. It’s not going as well as you would have liked and you look for something different.

“I’ve been a part of that a number of different times, and I actually really enjoyed it.”

DePodesta comes to Colorado with 20 years of MLB experience on his resume, which includes winning in each of his five stops (Cleveland, Oakland, San Diego, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets). Each of those five stops provided lessons he plans to bring to Denver.

“I was really young at the time and what I knew how to do at that point, at least what I felt like I knew how to do, was build a roster that could win,” DePodesta said. “I had an idea of what it’s going to take to win and that’s the job. With the Dodgers, we did it the first year and won the division.

“But it didn’t take long after that for me to realize that’s not the whole job. It’s a necessary part, but not the whole job. The whole job is about building an organization, not just a team.”