Lookup will always return an array because its quite possible that more than one value fulfills the condition given. So you also get a 1x1 array if just one single entry applies.
You may choose the very first entry in the list by adding the matrix index 0 (assuming that ORIGIN=0)

You may also consider to use a user-written lookup function, placed somewhere at the top of the sheet (maybe in a collapsed region) which does that job:

Thanks to the try,,,on error it will not throw an error if no match was found but returns a NaN (or change to whatever you feel appropriate).
Unfortunately user functions can't have an optional argument. So if you need the lookup function with the optional fourth argument you would have to use a second user function
