To passersby, the building's gray color and box-like look aren't going to stop traffic, but inside the next American Idol may be singing in a practice room next to Myron Dove, who has toured with Grammy-award-winning guitarist Carlos Santana and played with musicians like Steve Winwood and Al Jarreau.

Almost all the businesses within the 17,500-square-foot building are associated with the music or entertainment industries. It's a place where music lessons are taught, violins are purchased and events like Dancin' on the Avenue are produced and where the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association meets once a month.

After owning the building for 30 years Gordon Stevens says it has a rich history: it began as a gourmet supermarket—similar in style to Cosentino's—and evolved into a local "entertainment and media center."

Many of the current business owners inside 1202 Lincoln know it as a magnet for local entertainment companies, but when it was built in 1947, Stevens recalls his mother walking into the gourmet market and buying delicacies such as canned pheasant. Years later, in the early 1960s, Stevens says his family purchased the building from the supermarket owner. He says Stevens Music moved into the building because its previous location—next door to Bergmann's Department Store, now home to Casa Casa—had become too small. Stevens Music became the place where residents could come to buy a stereo, piano, organ, guitar or any other musical instrument or piece of equipment they needed.

"Everything musical was under one roof," Stevens says. "That was before the specialty store began."

In 1984, he decided to sell Stevens Music but kept ownership of the building, renting its rooms to different music-related businesses. Eight years later, with the help of a few friends, he decided to transform the building into what it's now become. TEC Productions aka The Entertainment Connection President and CEO Read Zaro is one of the newer tenants since the building's changeover.

"I used to live in Willow Glen and have always wanted to have some kind of office here," 51-year-old Zaro says.

He describes his business as threefold: dealing with event management, acting as a talent agency and providing sound and lighting systems.

"We are the oldest booking agency in the Santa Clara Valley," he says.

Along with producing Dancin' on the Avenue, the company organizes the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival and the Tapestry Arts Festival in San Jose. Zaro says he enjoys this aspect of his job most, because it allows for more creativity than just booking and scheduling bands for weddings or corporate parties.

"I like the diversity of what we do," he says. "We have a large regional roster of bands, and we get a lot of tapes from bands who want us to book them. A lot of people just know us by walking by the building."

Zaro employs about 13 people in his ground-floor office. He says the business used to have a busy season from April to October, then December to February, but now, with the growing number of corporate events held for businesses like semiconductor design software company Synopsis in Mountain View, his company is busy year-round.

Another longtime renter is Willow Music School, formerly known as the San Jose School of Music. Owner and music teacher Bradford Lee, 40, likes the location in Willow Glen "because it is the right mix of neighborhood and city."

The school has more than 75 students between the ages of "6 and senior citizen." Those who come in most often are beginners and want to learn how to play the piano or guitar or have voice lessons.

But Lee doesn't teach all the lessons himself. Part of his job is connecting music instructors with musicians and providing them a place to practice.

"Jazz and rock appear to be the most popular types of music taught among students," Lee says.

Stevens says he hopes that under Lee's leadership the school will continue its long tradition of producing professional musicians.

"We've had several dozen students who have gone from here to perform with the San Jose Symphony," Stevens says.

One of the only tenants that doesn't fit into Stevens' music and entertainment mold is the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association. Stevens provides an office and conference room for the association to use free of charge. He says this arrangement is his way of giving back to Willow Glen.

Willow Glen Business and Professional Association Executive Director Norma Ruiz says Stevens' generosity "was just such a blessing for us." Before moving into the office, Ruiz had done all of her work at home.

"I absolutely love it here," she adds. "It's such an eclectic mix of businesses, but they all seem to have a theme of music or production. A lot of music groups come in and out of the building."

She knows all the business owners, including Stevens, and calls the building "one big family."

"Everybody is always looking out for everybody else," she says. "The only thing I had to get used to was the different sounds throughout the building during the day."

The Willow Glen Business and Professional Association, TEC Productions and Willow Music School are just three of the 11 businesses at 1202 Lincoln Ave. Others are Stevens Violin Shop, Future Vibe Productions, Bear Tracks Promotions, Kimberly Reeves-Parker Music, The Sima Group, Daniel Avila Photography, Superior Color Lab and 68-year-old Stevens' current pet project, Open Path Studios. He built a state-of-the-art recording and production studio in the back of the building where local symphonies and other musical groups like the San Jose Jazz Society record their performances. He also helps students who are preparing their audition tapes for entrance into the Juilliard School in New York.

"We focus on a lot of new age, ethnic, Latin and Brazilian music," Stevens says. "We also have all kinds of jazz and alternative music. But we don't do a lot of pop music—you won't find Britney Spears here."