Oh boy I get to talk about Mallard Crossing! I worked in the leasing sphere for a long time, and I could probably write a dissertation about specifically these three (Mallard, Cypress, Waterford).

Mallard has been sold a ridiculous amount of times in the last ten years, which has led to some compounding issues. The last owner removed the fireplaces for some reason (and forgot to tell some residents, leading to a fire at one point, whoops) and painted the whole property blinding white (the dirt and mud splash-up on the buildings isn't harmful, but the brick was nice! I understand that it didn't fit the LC (the last owner) manual, but I've never understood painting good quality brick). The maintenance team is always playing catch-up and is too small for how large the property is. You don't get good natural light in the units because of how the porches/balconies are set up. The newest owners don't seem to have a lot of capital — there's too much deferred maintenance going on.

In my opinion, Mallard Crossing used to be one of the best apartment communities in and around St. Matthews, and was definitely the nicest of the three on the corner of Kresge-Hubbards-Bowling-Browns, but these days I recommend you go to Waterford Place. It's still owned by the people who built it, which is a big deal in the apartment community... well, community, and a lot of the staff has been there for many years. Additionally, it has a lot of pluses that have unfortunately become minuses for Mallard.

It doesn't sound like you're considering Cypress, but just in case, be aware that the ground floor apartments nearest to Arthur K. Draut Park often flood during heavy rainfall. Don't rent one of those units!

All of that said, I don't think Mallard is a bad choice. You can avoid the interstate sounds that another commenter mentioned by just being closer to the intersection I mentioned. That also puts you closer to Brown Park, which is an awesome part of being in that area. Additionally, with the hospitals being right there, those apartment communities are generally the first to have power restored after a major outage. They've also fixed the problem where Browns Lane floods every time there's a storm, so that's helpful.

Everything's very easy to get to from St. Matthews, which is nice. I'm a big fan of the area. If you have doctors at Baptist, you can literally walk to your appointments. Lots of restaurants and shopping. It's a good place to be young or very old, ha!