WP noob. Need assistance, not grief.

I’m a sql dba who was hired to mine data from the database behind this company’s WP blog. That’s all well and good, and easy enough. However, the CEO wants to pull down the WP code from the remote server (which i’ve done) and implement it on a local box to use here to start developing a new site, using the same themes and basic design as the original. I’ve created a new database in sql and have edited the wp-config file in the root of the folder which holds the wordpress files.

My question is, can i, and if i can, how do i, open the site i’ve downloaded locally and begin making changes to it in our “sandbox”? I’ve never used WP, but i have some experience in editing and publishing traditional HTML.

thanks