Sumigarden Session Undergoes Some Changes : Conference: A new name, UCI sponsorship and three keynote speeches will herald the university’s involvement in real estate development and land planning.

When the annual Sumigarden Conference on real estate issues convenes at the posh Four Seasons Hotel here Thursday morning, there will be a few changes apparent.

First is the name. The exclusive, invitation-only confab has been renamed the UCI Sumigarden Conference--reflecting UC Irvine’s new role as sponsor.

Another change will be the absence of co-founder Michael Sumichrast, who has delivered the keynote address since the first conference was held in Washington in 1984. Newport Beach real estate consultant Elm) Weingarden is Sumichrast’s partner and the garden in Sumigarden.

With UCI now running the program--part of the university’s effort to expand its involvement in the field of real estate development and land planning--economist Sumichrast’s talk has been replaced with three separate keynote speeches.

UCI has also broadened the conference by inviting 400 development-industry executives and scheduled a 90-minute panel on local real estate issues after the keynote talks. The university plans to add a new program in real estate studies--perhaps as early as fall, 1992.

University officials aren’t saying much about the proposed program at this early stage, said Richard Rodner, director of development for the UCI Graduate School of Management.

But he did say that the program will be interdisciplinary and designed to compete with the real estate programs offered at USC, UCLA and UC Berkeley. Courses will be drawn from both the Graduate School of Management and the School of Social Ecology’s graduate program. The program will also offer professional-enrichment courses for those already working in the field.

Mark Baldassare, professor of social ecology, has been named acting director while a search is conducted for a permanent program head. Rodner said it will be “a year or two” before the permanent appointment is made. Meanwhile, he said, the program still is in the early design stages.

UCI took on the job of running the annual Sumigarden conference, which has been held in Orange County since 1985, when co-founder Weingarden heard about the real estate program, Rodner said.

“Elm became aware we were in the formative stages and felt the university could benefit by becoming the presenter of the conference, so he offered it to us,” Rodner said.

The scheduled keynote speakers at Thursday’s conference are Carl D. Covitz, secretary of California’s Business, Transportation and Housing Agency; Robert H. Edelstein), co-chairman of the UC Berkeley Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, and William D. Foote, president of Southwest Diversified Inc., an Irvine development firm.