It’s official: San Diego’s new minor league hockey team will be based in Poway.

The San Diego Gulls, the top minor league team of the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks, will practice in the planned new Poway Ice Arena and will have executive offices on the arena’s mezzanine floor.

Nish Mehta, head of Hattrick, Inc., announced Friday morning that he has a signed contract with the Ducks, who will contribute approximately half of the estimated $4 million in arena construction costs.

The City Council on March 17 will review Mehta’s plans to convert most of a warehouse at 12455 Kerran St., in the Poway Business Park, and will consider approving a necessary conditional use permit.

Submitted plans include an NHL-sized ice rink, upstairs offices and locker room for the Gulls, snack bar, box office, pro shop, skate rental area and party room. Parking for 198 vehicles, plus another 26 spaces behind a fence for the team, is proposed.

Pending approval, Mehta said construction will begin by late March and should be completed by late summer. The Gulls, part of the new western division of the American Hockey League, will begin practicing in September, Mehta said, the same time the arena will be opened to the public. League games will be played in the Valley View Casino Center (formerly the San Diego Sports Arena) between October and May.

Mehta said he expects between 60 and 80 team-related employees, including management and players, to move to San Diego. (The team is being relocated from Norfolk, Virginia.) He said several people with whom he has spoken want to live in or near Poway to be close to the team’s headquarters and because of the quality of the Poway Unified School District schools.